Manafort now faces the rest of his life in prison. Will he finally be motivated to tell the whole truth about Trump?

One letter different, but a world apart. So, Bryan Adams is the '80s MTV pop star your trusty Gen-Xer blogger grew up listening to and watching. He's this guy. Here's one video, here's another. He's great!Now, Ryan Adams is this guy, below. Not great.Ryan Adams is accused by multiple women, recording artists and others, of being a self-confessed “like R. Kelly” sexual predator whose predations include a minor.Ava was 14. She played bass, and she was serious about it.Excerpt, NYT:Their conversations were on and off, but a constant theme was Adams fretting about Ava’s age — and asking to keep their exchanges secret — while also indulging in sexual scenarios.“I never see pics of you anymore,” Adams wrote in November 2014, when he had just turned 40 and Ava was newly 16. “You were blowing my mind.” He had pet names for her body parts.Days later, Adams expressed anxiety: “If people knew they would say I was like R Kelley lol,” he wrote.Yet within 10 minutes, the conversation again turned explicit. “I just want you to touch your nipple,” he texted, before again asking about her age. “And tell me that your mom is not gonna kill me if she finds out we even text.”In response to Adams’s repeated pleas that she tell him she was 18 — “You have to convince me,” he wrote — Ava at times said she was. Sometimes he asked to see identification — “in the hottest way that has ever been done Lol.” She never showed him any ID. Read the rest

There is a time in every artistic and scientific field when a precocious and promising young star appears. More often than not, as time goes by, the young star proves to be a meteor, blazing their ephemeral light for too a short time. Very few cultivate and nurture their spark of genius into adulthood and see the full fruition of their gifts.In the realm of prestidigitation and sleight-of-hand artistry, such a very young practitioner of magic was a kid called Joshua Jay, who has passed the test of time, having grown into the artist true to his early vocation. Unanimously acclaimed and esteemed by his peers, Joshua is presently a successful international performer, lecturer, author, magic creator and consultant, event producer and Guinness World Record holder. He has fooled Penn & Teller and recently has appeared on Jimmy Fallon. Although still in his mid-thirties, Joshua has skillfully played his cards. From Ohio, Jay is now based in New York, and has made the world his stage. I recently had the good fortune of catching Jay's latest show, Six Impossible Things. Whatever your notion of a magic show, this is likely something different: the audience is not expected to simply watch magic but to experience it. With only 20 guests allowed at every show, Six Impossible Things is an immersive hour-long experience, brimming with mystery, intrigue, and spellbinding magic. Directed by Luke Jermay — another well-respected magical performer in his own right — Six Impossible Things is a show with a soul. Read the rest

“They can't hug [their own siblings] goodbye. If they do, they're told they will be written up and it could affect their immigration case."

You can pre-order an official Dungeons and Dragons/Stranger Things RPG, packaged like a pre-distressed Red Box Basic D&D box, including a (barely) painted and unpainted demogorgon mini, character sheets, a starter campaign, a rulebook, and a set of polyhedral dice: $25 at Big Bad Toy Store. I've been recreating my perfect RPG shelf in pieces, and this kind of thing skewers me right through the guts. (via Super Punch) Read the rest

Jason from the Comedy on Vinyl podcast writes, "I've spent the last eight years interviewing people from Rachel Bloom to Harry Shearer about their favorite vinyl comedy albums on my podcast, 'Comedy on Vinyl.' A few weeks ago, inspired by the brilliant podcast 'Mystery Show,' I decided to do something new, as I attempted to uncover the true identity and life story of long-lost comedian Dick Davy. A character comic, a white guy who won over The Apollo, and a civil rights activist who later settled into obscurity, Dick Davy's story temporarily took over my life and renewed my faith in comedy as a potential agent for change." (MP3) Read the rest

Mark Patterson is Chuck Schumer's general counsel; he used to be a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, and he had 20 important clients, 19 of whom he has declined to name on his financial disclosure statements.Schumer has foot-dragged and fumbled his way through two years during which he was supposed to be putting an end to the revolving door between lobbying and government oversight. Patterson's opacity doesn't bode well for the future of the fight to get money out of politics.A coalition of 20 organizations recently wrote to Schumer demanding that he work to fill Democratic vacancies at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Merit Systems Protection Board. The letter faulted Schumer for allowing Trump’s judicial nominees to win confirmation by unanimous consent. Schumer could have used those vacancies as leverage to force votes on his party’s regulatory nominees, the progressives argued.Goldman Lobbyist Turned Schumer General Counsel Is Hiding Most Former Clients’ Names [Andrew Perez/The Intercept] Read the rest

Burning Man has long struggled with the tension between its commitment to "radical decommodification" and grifters and their ultra-high-net-worth marks who organize "turnkey camps" where you can pay giant sums to pretend to be a Burning Man "participant" while being looked after by paid "sherpas" (including, rumor has it, sex workers), in luxury settings designed to repel non-paying attendees (sometimes guarded by private security guards).The Burning Man Organization (affectionately: "The Borg") has struggled to craft policies to address this phenomenon. They have been hampered by their own divided sensibilities and by the difficulty of cleanly distinguishing between turnkey camps and camps that are simply very large and complicated (I know of a multi-hundred person camp where a few attendees are compensated for taking a month off work to organize the kitchen prior to the event -- are these "paid staff" or "compensated volunteers?"). The Borg announced a crackdown on turnkeys in 2015, but it was clear to attendees that this was a largely ineffective exercise. As noted, some of this was clearly related to the Borg's own divided sensibilities: founder Larry Harvey (who died last year) defended the idea of the super-rich attending amid a certain amount of luxury, on the basis that everyone experiences Burning Man in their own way.And the super-rich have a wealth (heh) of resources to deploy to get around policies intended to ensure participation: some one-percenter camps have "solved" the problem of building welcoming public spaces without surrendering their exclusivity by simply attaching an elaborate stage or bar to their private-security-guarded high-net-worth camps, and then paying performers or bartenders to appear in these public spaces. Read the rest

'Bring back our #ChildhoodDiseases.' Ugh.

The video for Weezer's cover of A-ha's "Take On Me" stars Calpurnia, the rather wonderful indie rock band fronted by Finn Wolfhard who plays Mike on Stranger Things. The song is included on Weezer's new "Teal Album," a collection of 1980s cover songs including their acclaimed version of Toto's "Africa."And just for kicks, here's Calpurnia's "Greyhound": Read the rest

In another example of life imitating Seinfeld, Melville, Saskatchewan citizen Dave Assman (pronounced Oss-men) applied for a personalized license plate of his last name but the Saskatchewan Government Insurance (like the DMV) put the kibbosh on the request and also his appeal. So Assman created a large decal inspired by the Saskatchewan plate design and slapped it on the rear end (ahem) of his truck. Based on the SGI's Twitter post below, they seem to be ok with that."It's just a name and censorship should be out of the window..." Assman said. "It upsets me, but I'm not one of those guys to take offence to it."(CBC)Looks like Mr. Assman got the last laugh after @SGItweets denied his request for a vanity plate with his last name!CC: @JohnGormleyShow, @TylerMcMurchy pic.twitter.com/tjvj9NbtqM— Taylor MacPherson (@TaylorMacP) February 13, 2019 Read the rest

Hulu is bringing back Howard the Duck. People may laugh at this new master of Quack-Fu as Kevin Smith has signed up to write for him.Variety:“Howard the Duck” will be written and executive produced by Kevin Smith and Dave Willis. Smith is known for his Askewniverse films, including “Clerks,” “Mallrats,” and “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.” Smith has also written for Marvel Comics in the past, writing for popular characters like Daredevil and Spider-Man. Willis previously co-created popular animated shows like “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and “Squidbillies” for Adult Swim in addition to his work as a voice actor.Smith is repped by WME. Willis is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.In the series, Howard the Duck is trapped in a world he never made, but America’s favorite fighting fowl hopes to return home with the help of his unstoppable gal pal Beverly before the evil Dr. Bong can turn him the crispiest dish on the menu.He shot an arrow straight into her heart. Read the rest

The following essay was written by Dr. Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, a renowned pediatrician, associate professor at NYU, and prominent leader in children’s environmental health. He's the author of a new book, Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future . . . and What We Can Do About It. -- Mark FrauennfelderAs a consumer, when it comes to chemical safety you’d be surprised how powerful your voice really is. When the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned bisphenols A (BPA) from baby bottles and silly cups, it wasn’t the scientific knowledge that moved the needle to trigger that decision. There had been a huge outcry in the media about the effects of this synthetic estrogen. Manufacturers changed their process for making these materials, and literally ran to FDA to ask for a change in the rules so that they didn’t lose market share and profit.In the current political climate, you might think this is less likely to happen, as chemical companies might feel emboldened. But it’s quite the opposite actually. A small study recently found perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals known to mess with thyroid hormone and our metabolic rate, in the linings of those buffet-style food carry out boxes you see in supermarkets. The findings from a small sample of measurements literally triggered two major supermarket chains to insist that their suppliers either shape up or literally be shipped out.This article focuses on five other examples where the same phenomenon is not that far away. Read the rest

In the Pacific Northwest 54 are confirmed infected with the once eradicated measles, as an outbreak also emerges in Texas.Think Progress:A large measles outbreak in Washington state shows no sign of abating.According to the State Department of Health, there are now at least 54 cases of the illness, all but one of which were located in Clark County, Washington, just across the river from Portland, Oregon. Directly to the south, the Oregon Health Authority has reported at least four cases. Within Clark County, the vast majority of diagnoses are of children 10 years old or younger.Measles — an airborne virus that can lead to lung infections, brain damage, and death in the worst cases — was responsible for thousands of deaths in the U.S. each year prior to the discovery of a vaccine in 1963. Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, but in the last year, there has been a worldwide resurgence of the virus, with cases increasing 30 percent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). One of the main drivers of this trend is a growing reluctance to vaccinate children, so much so that the WHO listed the anti-vaccination movement as one of its top ten threats to global health in 2019.“The reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines…threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases,” the WHO report reads. “The reasons why people choose not to vaccinate are complex; a vaccines advisory group to WHO identified complacency, inconvenience in accessing vaccines, and lack of confidence are the key reasons for the underlying hesitancy.” Read the rest

I've bought a lot of Tacklife tools in recent years, and have always been happy with them. So when learned Tacklife was selling this feature-filled cordless drill at a great price (when you use promo code I9AEAS92), I bought it without hesitation. It has an adjustable torque setting, a light, and a charger. Read the rest

You can’t argue with the facts, and the fact is, this week’s tabloids don’t have many of them.“Wacko Jacko Flunks Pedophile Lie Test!” reports the National Enquirer. No, there isn’t such a thing as a pedophile lie test. The Enquirer obtained video of Jacko’s deposition in a 1996 child molestation inquiry, and had a “lie detection expert” analyze the singer’s voice stress. “He’s just spouting lies,” concludes the analyst. Science at its best.“Proof Wacko Jacko Was Twisted Perv!” proclaims the Globe, which coincidentally also obtained video of Jacko’s 1996 deposition, and had a “renowned body language expert” analyze the singer’s movements. “His high, false laughter is a cover for lying,” declares the analyst. You gotta love science."William & Kate Named King & Queen!” screams the Enquirer cover, declaring: “Queen Gives Up Throne." No, she hasn’t. The Act of Settlement of 1701 makes the monarch’s successor the next Protestant in line to the throne, no matter what the Queen declares or who she names as her heir to the crown. Prince Charles could choose to abdicate once his mother dies, but the Queen can’t declare William king without an act of Parliament to change existing succession laws.It’s always interesting to get the intelligent American perspective on the British Royal Family, and the National Examiner provides that with its exclusive report on Prince Charles’ wife: “Craggy Camilla’s $100,000 facelift!” It’s an exclusive because the massed ranks of the British Royal press corps somehow failed to notice that Camilla had a full facelift, liposuction, and her teeth capped. Read the rest

"Fitness influencer" Michelle Lewin was romping around on Pig Beach in the Bahamas when a large wild pig couldn't help itself. It saw her butt cheek and bit it.Lewin posted the video — which includes a closeup of the bright red bite marks — to her Instagram with a good sense of humor. View this post on Instagram 🐷🤨🤷🏼‍♀️😂A post shared by Michelle Lewin (@michelle_lewin) on Feb 11, 2019 at 12:50pm PST Via geek.com Read the rest

More than 7 million Americans are over 3 months behind on their car loan payments, a new record since the metric began being tracked 19 years ago.From CNBC:That's more than 1 million higher than the peak in 2010 as the country was recovering from its worst downturn since the Great Depression."The substantial and growing number of distressed borrowers suggests that not all Americans have benefited from the strong labor market and warrants continued monitoring and analysis of this sector," Fed economists said in a report that accompanied their quarterly look at U.S. consumer debt.The surge in delinquencies came along with a $584 billion jump in total auto loan debt, the highest increase since the New York Fed began keeping track 19 years ago. Read the rest

The Toronto woman who tossed a chair from a 45th-floor balcony into traffic last week turned herself into police today. Marcella Zoia, 19, is charged with mischief endangering life, mischief involving damage to property, and common nuisance. Her Instagram account, which had 4,000 followers and 108 posts, has been deleted. After it was discovered that Zoia was staying at an Airbnb when she huirled the chair, the service announced that it would deplatform her.#Breaking @CP24 Exclusive photo of #chairgirl #chairtosser as she is being processed at 52 Division. Marcella Zoia , 19, of Toronto to appear in court this afternoon. #booking pic.twitter.com/u8c45QfBxc— Stephanie Smyth (@stephaniesmyth) February 13, 2019Suspect in chair throwing video surrenders to police from r/toronto[via Heavy]Images: @marcellacz_ | Instagram Read the rest

Senator Ron Wyden has publicly denounced both Apple and Google for hosting mobile apps that connect to Absher, a Saudi government service designed to allow Saudi men to track their spouses and employees' whereabouts at all times.Absher is a multifunction service, integrating payments and other services.Recent events have highlighted the routine oppression of Saudi women, even women from wealthy, powerful households.Notable: there is no campaign calling on Google and Apple to eliminate apps that allow parents to track their children (including teens) with an accuracy and totality once reserved for paroled prisoners. The adoption curve for oppressive technology goes: refugee, immigrant, prisoner, mental patient, children, welfare recipient, blue collar worker, white collar worker (think, for example, of video surveillance cameras). By this model, the Saudis aren't so much guilty of a horrific program of oppressive misogyny as they are of simply being a decade or so ahead of schedule (and maybe not even that long). There's really no reason either company should be hosting this app in their app stores. If Absher's creators want to distribute an app that prevents certain Saudi citizens from being treated as equals, they're free to host it on their own site. It's not like the developers don't have the clout to go it alone. The app is developed and supported by none other than the Saudi government.This isn't the sort of thing American companies should be giving platform space to, even if it technically meets the inconsistent standards both companies apply to app submissions. Read the rest

In 2009, 35-year-old Caesar Ray Cruz, a father of five, was on his way to pick up his kids from school when five Anaheim police officers shot and killed him. He was unarmed. The city of Anaheim paid his relatives $150,000 in a settlement.Cruz's mother, Theresa Smith, is seeking the records relating to her son's death, but the city wants a $3,000 deposit. She says she doesn't have the money.From Fox 11 News:"Are they crazy?" Smith asked. "We had to scrape by just to pay for a funeral. I certainly can't come up with that kind of money."Smith requested this information through a Public Records Act seeking certain police files that are now public under a new law, SB 1421, that took effect on Jan. 1. The type of files are limited and they include: If an officer was found by superiors to have lied or had an inappropriate sexual relationship on the job, or if officers used force where a person was killed or suffered great bodily injury.As many jurisdictions in California, including Contra County County and Southern California, are seeking to block the release of these files arguing that anything created before this date should be kept private, others, such as Anaheim, are complying with the new law, but they want to make sure that it's not at the taxpayer's expense.Image: Theresa Smith and son Ceasar Cruz Read the rest

A gentleman robbed a bank and was about to make a clean getaway — until he slipped on ice and spilled his stolen cash right in front of a police officer.Like a skit from a vaudeville show, the bank robber held up Bangor Savings Bank in Maine on Tuesday and then made a clumsy run for it. Things were going well, until dumb bad luck got in the way. Via centralmaine.com:He ran across four lanes of traffic on Main Street and into the Ming Lee restaurant parking lot, slipped on the ice and found himself face-to-face with a special agent for the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Task Force who just happened to be parked in the right place at the right time.“When he fell, the money and the gun he had stashed in his jacket pocket spilled onto the parking lot, and the money was swept across the parking lot by the wind,” police Chief Joseph Massey said later. “Members of the public tried to scoop it up.”The robber's gun, thought at first to be a handgun, was actually a BB gun. Already on probation for burglary, he was arrested "on charges of robbery."Image: torbakhopper/Flickr Read the rest

Blizzard/Activision posted $7.5b in net revenues for 2018, and announced that it would lay off 800 of the employees who made those revenues possible, but fear not! The last time the company did a mass layoff (600 people in 2012), it generously rehired those people as temps, doing the same jobs for less pay, with no security or benefits.The layoffs targeted the most precarious workers at the company: low-earning temps and contractors pulling long shifts in the hopes of getting hired on permanently.CEO Robert A. Kotick took home $28.6 million in 2017.As a former Activision Blizzard employee, allow me to congratulate you all on posting a record $7.5 billion net revenue for the calendar year 2018, and on upending the lives of some 800 human beings that helped make that incredible feat possible.I was working as an In-Game Support Representative (also known as a “Game Master”) in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft customer support department when the Activision/Vivendi merger finalized in the summer of 2008. While many of us were concerned about Activision’s potential influence on Blizzard’s sacred creative freedom, many fears were assuaged by management’s generous gift of a free copy of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for the Wii.Of course, the hundreds of us who were considered temporary full-time employees did not receive any “perks” like free Aerosmith games, despite doing the same work as full-time regular employees, just at $9 an hour instead of $11. Don’t you worry, though! I persevered and eventually earned my place as a full-time Blizzard employee — $11 an hour and everything — and was even allowed to attend the annual Blizzard Christmas party, which temporary full-time employees were barred from. Read the rest

The latest addition to the US Mint's Native American $1 Coin series celebrates "American Indians in the Space Program." The heads-side of the coin still features Sacagawea. From Space.com:The reverse features Mary Golda Ross, the first known Native American woman to become an engineer. Ross' work for Lockheed Martin helped advance the Agena rocket stage used by NASA for rendezvous and docking trials during the Gemini program in the 1960s.The tails-side also depicts an Atlas-Agena rocket lifting off and, peering down from the top of the coin, a spacesuited astronaut. The Mint describes the latter as being "symbolic of Native American astronauts, including John Herrington (mission specialist on the 2002 space shuttle Endeavour visit to the International Space Station)...""The nice thing is when something like this comes out, it opens up people to something they did not know about before and people who are really curious will go and learn more about it," explained Herrington. "They might learn about Jerry Elliott [of Osage and Cherokee heritage], who worked in Mission Control during the Apollo program and was part of the team that won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for the return of Apollo 13.""Or Mary Ross, who was honored with the Ely S. Parker Award, the highest award that AISES, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, gives out for contributions to math, science and engineering in the native community," he said. "She was one of the original people at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works." Read the rest

Lately, I've been re-reading some of the books that profoundly affected me the first time I read them (A few on my list: The Selfish Gene, Influence, You Can't Win, Sister Carrie, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre). One book I forgot about until I read Software engineer Bryan Cantrill's essay this morning, is The Soul of A New Machine (1981), Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction book about the team at Data General tasked with making a 32-bit minicomputer in a year.Shortly after I started reading, I began to realize that (contrary to what I had been telling myself over the years!) I had not re-read the book in full since that first reading so many years ago. Rather, over the years I had merely revisited those sections that I remembered fondly. On the one hand, these sections are singular: the saga of engineers debugging a nasty I-cache data corruption issue; the young engineer who implements the simulator in an impossibly short amount of time because no one wanted to tell him that he was being impossibly ambitious; the engineer who, frustrated with a nanosecond-scale timing problem in the ALU that he designed, moved to a commune in Vermont, claiming a desire to deal with “no unit of time shorter than a season”. But by limiting myself to these passages, I was succumbing to the selection bias of my much younger self; re-reading the book now from start to finish has given new parts depth and meaning. Read the rest

More than 200 teen journalists have come together to write Since Parkland, which profiles each of the more than 1,200 children killed by guns in the USA since the Parkland shooting (not including suicides, kids killed by cops, or shooters who were themselves killed while committing shootings): "The reporting you will read in 'Since Parkland' is journalism in one of its purest forms — revealing the human stories behind the statistics — carried out on an exhaustive scale." A reminder that we do more to keep kids from getting their shots than we do to keep them from getting shot. (via Kottke) Read the rest

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Will Burrard-Lucas | Wildlife (@willbl) on Feb 13, 2019 at 3:05am PST In central Kenya, biologists and wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas captured footage of a fantastically rare melanistic leopard, sometimes known as an African "black panther." There are only two known prior photos of an African black leopard, from 1909 and 2007. From National Geographic:"Almost everyone has a story about seeing one, it's such a mythical thing," says Pilfold, of San Diego Zoo Global's Institute for Conservation Research."Even when you talk to the older guys that were guides in Kenya many years ago, back when hunting was legal [in the 1950s and ‘60s], there was a known thing that you didn't hunt black leopards. If you saw them, you didn't take it..."Pilfold adds it’s curious that the fictional country of Wakanda, home of the superhero Black Panther, is located in East Africa, fairly close to Kenya."It's a unique coincidence," says Pilfold. "The only place where we have black leopards is where this place in the Marvel Universe appears to exist.""Black leopard spotted in Africa for first time in 100 years" (National Geographic)Black Leopard: My quest to photograph the most elusive cat in Africa (Camtraptions) Read the rest

Apple's been playing Lucy-and-the-football with the media industry for years now, exploiting the media's horrible Daddy Complex that has it forever searching for a tech company that will give it a sustainable future.The latest such bid is Apple's forthcoming "Netflix for news" product that will collect $10/month from subscribers and then share the revenue among media outlets, based on the pageviews each outlet generates.Leaks from people involved in negotiating the deals have it that Apple is planning on keeping 50% of the revenues generated by its product (double the rate it keeps from Itunes "sales," and much more than it charges software vendors who use Ios App Store, who pay 15%-30% depending on the transaction).This is a reminder that whether or not you are paying for the product, you are the product. Google sells you to advertisers (for laughably small sums, because it sucks at predicting which ads will trigger sales and thus has to collect ever-larger quantities of personal information to make ever-smaller gains in its prediction accuracy); and Apple sells you to copyright holders: the music industry, the movie industry, software vendors, and news outlets (Apple doesn't always sell you: sometimes it just milks you, as when it spends millions to kill Right to Repair laws in order to force you to pay a premium to get your property serviced, and to give it control over when a machine has to be landfilled and replaced, rather than fixed and re-used).In both cases, you have a giant, secretive, tax-dodging, essentially lawless would-be monopolist using a combination of market-cornering, DRM, restrictive license terms, trade secrets, confidentiality agreements, financial engineering, and other tactics that were Read the rest

Six police officers in Vallejo, CA shot and killed 20-year-old rapper Willie Bo while he was sleeping in his car at a Taco Bell.Police came to investigate Bo after an employee at Taco Bell called to report that a man was "slumped over" in his car, according to The Guardian. The car was running with the doors locked.When police arrived, Bo was "unresponsive" and "had a gun on his lap." The cops called for backup. When Bo surprised them by actually moving, the officers freaked out.Via The Guardian:Six Vallejo officers fired “multiple rounds” at the man, identified by family as Willie McCoy, police said. McCoy had a handgun on him when the officers fired out of “fear for their own safety” on Saturday night, according to the department. The family of McCoy, whose rapper name was Willie Bo, said Tuesday that police had racially profiled the young black man and that there was no justification for using deadly force against someone who was sleeping and not a threat...Police further alleged that officers told him to “keep his hands visible” but that he “quickly moved his hands downward for the firearm”. Police said six officers all fired shots within roughly four seconds, but they did not disclose the number of bullets that struck McCoy. The officers continued shouting commands before removing him from the vehicle and “rendering medical assistance”. He died on the scene. Police have not yet confirmed his identity and said an autopsy was pending. Read the rest

Keniel A Thomas is part of the wave of violent phone scam gangs that have led to chaos in cities across the island; he made the mistake of trying to con the 90-year-old William Webster out of $50,000 with a hamfisted advance-fee fraud scam, not realizing that Webster is a top US spook, the only person ever to have served as chief of both the CIA and FBI.Webster brought in the FBI and strung Thomas along, recording several alarming death threats against Webster and his wife, and when Thomas visited New York, he was arrested, charged and tried, and is now serving a six-year sentence.As satisfying as this is in a Coen-brothers absurdist comedy way, it won't do much to resolve the issues for Jamaicans or Americans. Despite a few successful defraudings of Americans, Thomas appears to have been a sloppy amateur (his background search on Webster turned up his home address and wife's name, but missed his connections to US spy and police agencies; he careened between cajoling and threatening) and a low-level grifter. Arresting him will do little to reduce the volume of attempted frauds from Jamaican call-center gangs, which victimize many Americans, especially older Americans.And that means that this guy's arrest will also do little to help the Jamaicans or shield them from the violence and corruption that has attended the rise of these gangs. So it's a fun story, but the underlying structural problems are untouched by it. The calls to the Webster home started in March 2014, with various men calling to tell William Webster he had won the lottery. Read the rest

In the matter of Chiyonokuni vs Takanoyama on Day 7 of Hatsu Basho 2013, YouTube commenters note that the winning manoever, a Henka sidestep, is generally considered bad form, but in this case the larger wrestler had earlier disrespected the smaller one, so it's all cool.The spank really makes it, doesn't it?Here's another example of a Henka:Here's a failed Henka (bout begins at 6:20m), though it still puts the wrestler at an advantage and he soon wins the bout: Read the rest

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH Pato Afortunado migrates to America and normalizing hilarity ensues!

The ultimate American politician and conspiracist is dead—at least according to Twitter. It's hard to know where to begin, really. This video summarizes LaRouche's thoughts on Walter Mondale and is as good a place as any to start. The waters run deep and wide; I cannot but suspect Prince Philip is pleased to outlive him. Read the rest

I've been waiting for the PlayStation Classic to be cheap enough to impulse buy. $40 was my price point and today Amazon has it beat by a penny.The PS-Classic comes loaded with 20 games, several of which I would like to play. The console is hackable with little more than a Google search and it seems simple to add games.I'm looking forward to playing Twisted Metal with my daughter.PlayStation Classic Console via Amazon Read the rest

* MSNBC did not actually exonerate him.

The event will be Apple's first major announcement in 2019.

Denver's teachers Read the rest

South Carolina cops love the state's civil asset forfeiture laws, which allow the police to seize any property they believe represents the proceeds of a crime and keep it, unless the property's former owner hires a lawyer to prove the innocence of their goods: more than $17m was seized last year, and in a fifth of these cases, no one was convicted of a crime (71% of the people whose stuff gets stolen by South Carolina cops are Black).After a longrunning, deeply reported expose on civil asset forfeiture in South Carolina, the Greenville News contacted cops who'd used civil asset forfeiture to pad their budgets to get their take on things. The most dramatic take came from the lobbyist Jarrod Bruder, executive director of the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association, who said that without the right to steal things from people without charging them with a crime or even arresting them (19% of forfeiture cases involve no arrest!), they wouldn't be motivated to go after drug dealers and other criminals.Bruder is quoted as saying: "What is the incentive to go out and make a special effort? What is the incentive for interdiction?"Asset forfeiture is one of the most perverse features of US law: in 2014, US cops seized more forfeited property from Americans than was stolen from them by burglars in the same year. Obama's DOJ was limited the practice, then stopped facilitating asset forfeiture altogether after Congress zeroed out the budget it had used for the program, and Congress came to the rescue again when Trump and Sessions tried to revive and expand forfeiture in 2017. Read the rest

The courthouse in Rogers County, Oklahoma was shut down last week when a sheriff noticed that a lawyer had bedbugs "bed bugs are crawling all over them certainly in abundance" -- the lawyer was also accused of shaking out his jacket over the prosecution's files, and gave the impression that he didn't care about his infestation. (via Lowering the Bar) Read the rest

Last month, Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren proposed an annual tax on the largest fortunes in America, with some of the cash generated by the tax being funneled into the IRS to catch dodgers who move or hide their money to escape the tax.The Warren proposal was modelled on the work of French economist Thomas Piketty, who set out the case for a global wealth tax as an engine for economic growth and political stability in his blockbuster Capital in the 21st Century.Now, Piketty has published an editorial endorsing Warren's proposal and connecting it to the history of US tax policy, arguing (with data to support his position) that historic tax rates -- which were much higher than they are now -- were the key to US growth and avoiding the malaise, instability and horrific wars that rocked Europe for a century.He says that the Reagan/Bush tax-cuts (which kicked off the current race to a state of massively unstable and unfair inequality) "turned their backs on the egalitarian origins of the country, by counting on historical amnesia and by fuelling identity-based divisions."To understand this, let’s look back. Between 1880 and 1910, while the concentration of industrial and financial wealth was gaining momentum in the United States, and the country was threatening to become almost as unequal as old Europe, a powerful political movement in favour of an improved distribution in wealth was developing. This led to the creation of a federal tax on income in 1913 and on inheritances in 1916. Read the rest

If there's one issue that the Democrats could win votes with, it's limits on pharmaceutical prices, because virtually every American agrees that we're being ripped off by Big Pharma (and that goes double for Obama Democrat voters who switched to being Trump voters in 2016).But the Democratic establishment doesn't want the Democrats to win, they want Democrats to win without upsetting the donor class, and pharma spends like crazy (I'm looking at you, Other Cory). Pelosi runs a big organization and it's full of people who have their hearts in the right place on at least one issue, even if they're fatally compromised on other issues. Think of Pelosi health aide Wendell Primus, who hates the pharma industry and its price gouging, but is willing to help kill Medicare for All and replace it with ACA expansion, ensuring that poor Americans are insured by private companies who get to bill the US government virtually unlimited sums in exchange.But even if Pelosi's staff are good on one issue, that issue will be undermined by someone else in her circle, creating a virtually unbeatable obstacle course for any progressive policy.Take the pharma deal Pelosi is cooking up: to rein in pharma prices, Pelosi will ask pharma companies to voluntarily enter into a nonbinding arbitration system on pricing. Seriously, that's it: voluntary, nonbinding controls on pricing, versus the vast army of Martin Shkrelis who have already made 2019 one of the worst years for multi-hundred-percent pharma price increases, and it's only been 6 weeks. Read the rest

I posted about this tiny Bluetooth speaker last year, and shortly after that, it was no longer available on Amazon. It's back now at a great price. The sound quality is really good for such a small device, and it will run for about 4 hours on a charge. It also works as a speakerphone. Read the rest

A "lobbyist for a major bank" told Reuters that they're afraid to meet with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who now sits on Congress's Financial Services Committee, because "anything you do or say can be used against you" -- the lobbyist likened meeting with AOC to "going in to talk to the FBI."Another lobbyist cited AOC's use of Twitter to denounce the lobbyists who were invited to brief the incoming Congress at "orientation" sessions as an example of how letting the mask slip around Ocasio-Cortez would result in global social-media shaming for poor, defenseless lobbyists. Speaking to Reuters, Ocasio-Cortez did not rule out listening to industry concerns to arrive at responsible regulation, but said “they have more than enough sympathetic ears” on the committee.“We also saw in 2008 just a lot of advocacy for policies that were at its core totally irresponsible. But they were dressed up as conservative fair-minded measures,” she added. Banks weigh whether to embrace or avoid progressive firebrand Ocasio-Cortez [Pete Schroeder and Michelle Price/Reuters](Image: @AOC) Read the rest

KING 5 news up in Seattle compiled this selection of drivers in Lynnwood, a suburb south of town, who really should not be out in their pokey little front-wheel-drive compacts. [Thanks, Dean!] Read the rest

Malawi's "barefoot engineers" are a group of eight local women who received solar engineering training in the Barefoot College in Rajasthan, India and returned home to install solar systems for poor and/or rural women.Only 10% of Malawi is electrified: solar holds the potential for Malawi to leapfrog wireline, centralized power-generation and move straight to a decentralized, all-renewables, independent and locally appropriate form of electrification.Peter Canton from VSO traveled with the barefoot engineers and documented their installations and the stories of the people whom their work benefited; their stories illuminate (literally) the way that climate remediation, power and gender twine together, and how access to training can profoundly transform the lives of women in the world's poorest and most remote places. Emily Kamwendo, 62, and her husband Stefano Simion maintain a solar panel on roof of their house. Initially, Kamwendo’s husband was sceptical about her training with VSO’s Solar Mamas project, but now he says he appreciates her contribution to the community. A group of women from Malawi all spent six months at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, India, learning to build and wire electrical components The barefoot engineers of Malawi – in pictures [Peter Caton/VSO/The Guardian](via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

"An empty presentation delivered by a charismatic speaker can impress even an experienced audience," says Greg Ross of the Futility Closet, in his post about the "Dr. Fox Effect."This [Rockwell Retro Encabulator] presentation, an in-joke among engineers, is technobabble but manages to seem oddly persuasive. In 1970, John Ware and Reed Williams of the University of Southern California School of Medicine ran an experiment that helps to show why.The researchers arranged lectures on mathematical game theory for two audiences of psychiatrists and psychologists. In one classroom the lecturer was an actual scientist, and in the other, he was an actor playing “Dr. Myron L. Fox” who’d been given one day to prepare a lecture “with an excessive use of double-talk, neologisms, nonsequiturs, and contradicting statements.”When both Fox and the scientist delivered their material in an inexpressive monotone, the scientist’s students performed better on an examination. But when both spoke engagingly, the students rated the charlatan as highly as the expert.“The actor fooled not just one, but three separate audiences of professional and graduate students,” law professor Deborah J. Merritt wrote later. “Despite the emptiness of his lecture, fifty-five psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, graduate students, and other professionals produced evaluations of Dr. Fox that were overwhelmingly positive. … The disturbing feature of the Dr. Fox study, as the experimenters noted, is that Fox’s nonverbal behaviors so completely masked a meaningless, jargon-filled, and confused presentation.”(John E. Ware and Reed G. Williams, “The Dr. Fox Effect: A Study of Lecturer Effectiveness and Ratings of Instruction,” Journal of Medical Education 50:2 [1975], 149.) Read the rest

This cat Shaft is a bad mother. Read the rest

A teen's Reddit post went viral when he asked the public how he could get vaccinated. "My parents are kind of stupid and don't believe in vaccines. Now that I'm 18, where do I go to get vaccinated? Can I get vaccinated at my age?"The Ohio high school student, Ethan Lindenberger, says he had just gotten his driver's license and a car, and had some money, and was ready to do defy his parents. "It's stupid and I've had countless arguments over the topic. But, because of their beliefs I've never been vaccinated for anything, god knows how I'm still alive."A month after his post, he started getting shots, including "hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza and HPV," according to The Huffington Post. His mother reacted by telling undark.org that his actions were like a "slap in the face...It was like him spitting on me.” Lindenberger has six siblings, and only his oldest sister and brother were vaccinated. After that, his parents thought that "vaccines are some kind of government scheme," according to Ethan, who spoke out on Good Morning America today."I've never been vaccinated for anything, God knows how I'm still alive." An Ohio 18-year-old went against his anti-vaxx mother's beliefs and fought to get vaccinated when he turned 18. @LinseyDavis reports. https://t.co/7uPNW231Zv pic.twitter.com/P8IFBev1rv— Good Morning America (@GMA) February 12, 2019Seven states now allow minors to petition so that they can make their own decision when it comes to vaccinations. But in the states where kids don't have a choice, some teens are coming to Ethan for advice. Read the rest

How does a $50 drone compare against a $1,400 Mavic 2 Pro? Well, I was hoping this test would reveal that the $50 knockoff was about half as good as the Mavic. But it turns out that the knockoff is so crappy that it's 0% as good. It can't deal with a light breeze, it loses its radio connection frequently, the camera is garbage, and the battery dies without warning. The Mavic 2 Pro, on the other hand, is a thing of beauty, with built-in GPS so it hovers, and a gorgeous video image.Image: Indy Mogul/YouTube[via Dooby Brain] Read the rest