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“I Can’t Breathe !!!”
“I Can’t Breathe !!!”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JULY 28TH- ROBESPIERRE’S FALL FROM GRACE
This Day In History: July 28, 1794
On July 28, 1794, the man who was once the hero of the French Revolution suffered an astounding fall from grace. His zealousness and tireless devotion to “The Cause” made him the obvious choice to lead the Revolution during its most radical phase known as the Reign of Terror. Ironically, the very qualities that led to his domination were also the cause of his damnation.
Maximilien Robespierre born in 1758 in Arras, France. He studied law, and was elected as a representative of the Arras commoners in the Estates General in 1879. Robespierre became a leading member of the Revolutionary body when the Third Estate became the National Assembly. His political stance was democratic and radical – he even believed in the abolition of the death penalty. He’d change his mind on that one quick enough. …
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: He met death head-on – he was face-up watching the guillotine blade come at him in his final moments of life.
Bill Maher: Trump Is ‘The Voice of Treason’ for Urging Russia to Hack Hillary
The ‘Real Time’ host excoriated the Republican presidential nominee for calling on Russia to commit cyberterrorism against his election opponent Hillary Clinton.
THANKS to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher for making this program available on YouTube.
On Wednesday, noted misogynist Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President of the United States, made a plea: the raccoon-haired real estate heir—and ex-reality TV host—called on Russia to hack former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens, that’ll be next,” he said to a stunned group of journalists during a particularly unhinged presser.
Trump was, of course, referring to the recent DNC hack, wherein WikiLeaks published a cache of over 19,000 emails stolen from the computers of the Democratic National Committee—an act that exposed exchanges suggesting they offered Clinton preferential treatment over Bernie Sanders, and that subsequently led to the resignation of DNC honcho Debbie Wasserman Schultz. U.S. officials and top researchers believe that Russia is behind the hack, and conducted it to tip the U.S. presidential election in Trump’s favor—since Trump is a yuge fan of Vladimir Putin, has a 30-year business history with Russia including a stable of moneyed Russian investors, and his campaign aides (and surrogates) harbor direct links to the Kremlin.
Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2013
Putin has become a big hero in Russia with an all time high popularity. Obama, on the other hand, has fallen to his lowest ever numbers. SAD
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2014
…
Bernie or Bargain
Are die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters willing to compromise and vote for Hillary Clinton? The Atlantic’s Alex Wagner toured the Democratic National Convention to find out.
10 Recent Crimes That Are Stranger Than Fiction
It stands to reason that in any large population, police will encounter odd situations from time to time. The situations we’ll be taking a look at, however, straddle a fine line between “odd” and “those involved woke up inside a Quentin Tarantino film.” Reality can and often does one-up fiction in terms of sheer weirdness, and we’ve got the proof.
10. The Brain Thief
In July 2016, police raided the home of Pennsylvanian Joshua Lee Long looking for evidence relating to a series of burglaries in the area. They found more than enough to arrest him, but they also found something rather unexpected in a Walmart shopping bag underneath the porch—a jar of embalming fluid containing a human brain. Joshua had named it “Freddy.”
Police are pretty sure that the brain was stolen, too, perhaps from a lab or university. Joshua also found another use for the formaldehyde-based embalming fluid: He’d been spraying it on his marijuana to intensify the high. Pennsylvania State Trooper Bob Hicks astutely summed up the raid: “This is one of those situations where, I think, a lot of guys were surprised.” …
John Oliver Mocks Hillary VP Tim Kaine on ‘Colbert’: He Is ‘America’s Stepdad’
The two Daily Show alums came together on Wednesday night’s live Late Show to break down the DNC.
THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
As the clock approaches 1 a.m. on the east coast Wednesday night, John Oliver came out swinging during Stephen Colbert’s post-DNC live show. And he didn’t want to talk about Joe Biden or Barack Obama. No, Oliver is “all about Tim Kaine.”
“Where are my Kaineiacs in the audience?” he asked to tepid applause. “If he’s going to be America’s stepdad, that was an exemplary performance. The level of dad jokes and impressions that came out of that man’s soft face. He is a tall glass of lactate.
“His Donald Trump impression doesn’t just not sound like Donald Trump,” Oliver added. “I don’t think it sounds like anybody.” He said he’s never “wanted to be called ‘scamp’” by anyone as much as he did by Kaine tonight.
“He’s the cool stepdad,” Colbert offered.
“He’s as cool as could possibly be,” Oliver joked. “I have never saw anyone more about to break into a harmonica solo than that man.” …
How the GOP Ruined a Great Meme
The story of “This is fine” dog.
On the first night of the Democratic National Convention, as boos from the audience intermittently downed out the presenters onstage, someone in the GOP’s social media shop hammered out a quick tweet. Where the party’s official account would go on to criticize speakers on points or call on supporters to register, this one was simpler, dominated by a short comic: Just two panels long, it features a dog seated at a table in a room aflame. In the first image, the pup remains placid as fire rises up around him. The image zooms in slightly in the second, and he speaks the phrase, “This is fine.”
Well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #DemsInPhilly #EnoughClinton pic.twitter.com/qVywJM90Eu
— GOP (@GOP) July 25, 2016
It’s a meme that’s been making the rounds for years. The original image is the work of K.C. Green, who first drew it in a strip for his now-defunct web comic Gun Show. Titled “On Fire,” that original version carries on for another four panels, the flames first setting the dog’s hat ablaze and then melting away fur and flesh, his eyes literally falling from his head. The anthropomorphic canine remains almost maniacally calm throughout, pronouncing in the penultimate panel, “That’s okay, things are going to be okay.”
Isolating the first two panels, however, removes some of the full comic’s bleaker implications. There’s still the feeling here that the world is falling apart, but without the fuller context, it’s the dog’s cool demeanor—somewhere between bemused acceptance and outright denial—that stands out. The meme’s influence is so pervasive that it may have changed the meaning of its eponymous phrase. As the Verge’s Chris Plante observes in his introduction to an interview with Green, “This is fine does not mean this is fine—not on social media.” …
10 Amazing Ways Pluto Is Alive
New Horizons left Earth on January 19, 2006, at a ridiculous solar escape velocity of over 58,000 kilometers per hour (36,000 mph). In February 2007, New Horizons stole a bit of Jupiter’s orbital energy, boosting itself to 84,000 kilometers per hour (52,000 mph). After nearly 5 billion kilometers (3 billion mi) and 9.5 years, it met Pluto on July 14, 2015. It’s now more than 35 AU (astronomical units) from Earth on its way to the Kuiper Belt.
10. Pluto’s Tail
The piano-sized New Horizons probe carries seven instruments, including one to see Pluto’s interaction with the 1.6-million-kilometer-per-hour (1 million mph) solar wind.
The SWAP (Solar Wind Around Pluto) instrument found that, like everything else about Pluto, its solar influence is unique in the solar system. Smaller comet-like bodies gently perturb the wind while larger planets slam into it like a wrecking ball. Pluto does both, acting like some wacky hybrid between planet and comet. Pluto creates a neat little bow shock but also an abrupt displacement of solar wind, the Plutopause. …
Trump Shows the Flaws of NSA Surveillance
His call for Russian hackers to break into Hillary Clinton’s email validate the worst suspicions of security-state critics.
On Wednesday, Leon Panetta, the former director of the CIA, declared on stage at the DNC that the Republican Party’s nominee is unfit for office. He was responding in part to news that Donald Trump “hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyber-espionage against a former secretary of state.”
For Panetta, that was unforgivable.
“Donald Trump today once again took Russia’s side,” he said. “He asked the Russians to interfere in American politics … It is inconceivable to me that any presidential candidate would be that irresponsible. I say this out of a firm concern for the future of my children and my grandchildren: Donald Trump cannot become our commander in chief. In an unstable world we cannot afford unstable leadership.”
His outrage is understandable––once again, Donald Trump showed that he lacks the judgement and self-discipline necessary to be a good president of the United States.
But Panetta is rather late in foreseeing the possibility of such a leader. …
Donald Trump once again proves he’s the chaos candidate
The big story at the Democratic convention for most of Wednesday was not the Democrats — not Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine or even President Obama, the evening’s star speaker. It was Donald Trump, whose loose and provocative talk about the Russians and Clinton’s emails seemed exponentially beyond even his standards for creating turmoil and controversy.
Trump thrives on chaos and above all else demands attention. When the spotlight falls elsewhere, such as on the Democrats this week in Philadelphia, he looks to shift it back in his direction. He is a candidate who uses disruption as a strategic force. Wednesday was a textbook example — whether for good or ill.
Trump veered into controversy at a Wednesday morning news conference in Florida. He suggested that the Russians should hack into Clinton’s private emails if they have not already and then release publicly those that she deleted before turning over the server to the federal government. …
THE LOST CONTINENT THAT NEVER EXISTED: MU
Thousands of years younger than the tales of its fabled cousin, Atlantis, the lost continent of Mu was first proposed in the mid-19th century to explain the phenomenon of similar symbols, architecture and myths found in otherwise disparate, ancient cultures around the world. Unfortunately for adherents to the idea, there is no empirical evidence to support its existence or the theories of its demise.
Ancient Aliens aside… it’s hard not to notice that both the Mayans and Egyptians built pyramids, that ancient people from around the world (including Hindu, Greek, Ojibwa, Cañari, Sumerian and Hebrew) all share a similar flood myth, and that cultures as far away as Easter Island and Egypt have similar names for the Sun (ra’a and Ra). So, it’s easy to see why people develop theories to explain the resemblance that involve a common, ancient source. …
US and Mexico’s mass deportations have fueled humanitarian crisis, report says
Tide of vulnerable people fleeing violence in Central America preyed upon by criminals and corrupt officials in part due to inadequate asylum procedures
Mass deportations and inadequate asylum procedures in Mexico and the US have fueled a humanitarian crisis where desperate Central Americans seeking refuge from rampant violence are routinely preyed upon by criminal gangs and corrupt officials, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG).
The tide of people fleeing Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – three of the five most dangerous countries in the world – continues apace despite beefed-up border control measures implemented after Barack Obama declared the 2014 surge in undocumented migrants a humanitarian crisis. Last year, Mexico deported 165,000 Central Americans, while the US expelled 75,000.
In order to avoid detection, vulnerable people – who include increasing numbers of women and unaccompanied children – are forced to pay higher fees to smugglers, crooked officials, and kidnappers, and use riskier, more isolated routes through Mexico, according to the report Easy Prey: Criminal Violence and Central American Migration. Once deported, many simply try again rather than face hunger and violence at home, creating a revolving door of vulnerable migrants and refugees. …
Native American teen faces a year in prison for possessing one gram of weed
Devontre Thomas faces a federal trial that advocates say is a waste of resources and a stark reminder that law enforcement continue to target people of color
An Oregon teenager could be sentenced to a year in prison for possessing about one gram of marijuana in a federal case that has sparked widespread outrage about the ongoing “war on drugs” – even in US states that have fully legalized cannabis.
Devontre Thomas, a Native American 19-year-old, is accused of possessing a small amount of weed – enough for about one joint – and will face a federal trial that advocates say is a waste of resources and a stark reminder that US law enforcement agencies continue to target people of color for low-level pot offenses.
The one-count charge brought by the US attorney’s office – which could also result in a $1,000 fine – is the latest illustration of growing tensions in US laws on marijuana. The drug is sold recreationally in four states but remains outlawed at the federal level. …
5 Reasons (Almost) Everyone Was Wrong About Trump
You jerks! I said this was going to happen. I told you months ago that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican nominee. I wrote about it in my column (a lot), I recorded podcasts about it, I serial texted friends about it. I wouldn’t shut up about it. For at least the first few months, when names like J.E.B. Bush and Ted Cruz still seemed like candidates the public might not completely hate, most of what I got in return, be it on the Internet or in real life, was comments like these:
That last guy wasn’t wrong.
The nomination wasn’t the only thing I said would definitely happen, though, and a lot of those other things came to pass as well. So, now I get comments like this:
Also not wrong.
I should probably follow that guy back. What an asshole I am. Anyway, we talk about some of the other things I got right on this week’s Unpopular Opinion podcast …
… where I’m joined by my Cracked co-workers Tom Reimann, Randall Maynard and Josh Sargent. I’m going to take a slightly different direction with the column. Instead of dwelling on the details I got right, I want to talk about a few of the things I learned from accurately “predicting” the course of the Trump campaign. …
RESEARCHERS HAVE SUCCESSFULLY TRICKED A.I. INTO SEEING THE WRONG THINGS
AND HERE’S WHY THAT COULD BE VERY BAD FOR THE FUTURE
Researchers tricked algorithms into misidentifying images, even when the picture was taken with a regular smartphone camera.
Artificial intelligence lets us offload tasks onto machines—they’re beginning to tag our photos, drive our cars, and fly our drones. These A.I. systems occasionally make wrong decisions while doing these things, as speculated in the recent Tesla Autopilot crash or mishearing a voice command, but new research suggests that hackers with experience in A.I. could force these algorithms to make wrong and potentially harmful decisions.
Researchers took the first step in validating these real-world attacks when they forced an A.I. algorithm to misidentify images, up to 97 percent of the time, in pictures taken with a smartphone. Changes to the images, printed on paper and photographed with a smartphone in the experiment, are invisible to human eye, but outside the lab the difference could be between a self-driving car seeing a stop sign or seeing nothing at all. …
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: “You could imagine someone signing a check that looks like it was for $100, and the ATM reads it as $1000.”
Impossible burger: New York’s latest food craze is a veggie burger that bleeds
David Chang’s Momofuku Nishi debuted a veggie burger for meat eaters Wednesday, and so far opinions are divided between incredulous and disgusted
There was no blood at the worldwide debut of the Impossible Burger, a fake meat startup’s $80m investment to see if a meat-free burger substitute could convince meat eaters to choose plants over animals.
The burger is not meant for vegetarians like me. It is meant to sway carnivores towards a more environmentally friendly, plant-based product.
And at lunchtime on Wednesday, Impossible Foods seemed to have achieved its goal. John Falco, a self-described burger snob, said the burger was “close enough and good enough” to a meat burger. “Absolutely, I would eat it again,” he said.
Darren Gruber, who also eats meat, agreed. “If I could have this without eating an animal, that’s great,” he said.
. Behold, the @impossible_foods burger! The future of food is now. Big ups to the @impossible_foods team and @davidchang. Start reducing your ecological footprint now, and explore all of the new plant-based options out there. Your body, mind, and planet will thank you.…
10 Ways You Can Legally Discriminate In The USA
America’s come a long way. The days of keeping slaves and forbidding women from voting have come and gone. Today, the people of the land of the free can take pride in living in a country where all people are created equal, and all people enjoy the same rights.
Almost all the same rights. If you still have a few prejudiced bones in your body, you can act on them all you want—just as long as you know the right circumstances.
10. Companies Can Refuse To Hire LGBT Employees In 28 States
The Civil Rights Act forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin but not sexual orientation—until last year. Which sounds like a victory, but there are conflicting reports on whether that definition trumps religious exemption laws. So, as long as a state claims religious grounds, its citizens might be able to go on firing LGBT employees.
Somebody will have to test this in court to find out which law will win out. Until then, though, a lot of people are playing it safe—so much so that it’s considered common for CEOs to come out at their retirement party. …
Are We the Only Animals That Understand Ignorance?
Two psychologists argue that while apes and monkeys can think about the minds of others, they lack one crucial ability that only humans have.
A chimp in Kibale National Park, probably not thinking about the future.
You’re holding a surprise party for a friend. The door opens, the lights flick on, everyone leaps out… and your friend stands there silent and unmoved. Now, you’re the one who’s surprised. You assumed she had no idea, and based on that, you made a (wrong) prediction about how she would react. You were counting on her ignorance. This ability to understand that someone else might be missing certain information about the world comes so naturally to us that describing it feels mundane and trite.
And yet, according to two psychologists, it’s a skill that only humans have. “We think monkeys can’t do that,” says Alia Martin from Victoria University of Wellington.
This claim is the latest volley in a long debate about how our fellow primates understand each other. Of particular interest is the question: Do they have a “theory of mind”—an understanding that others have their own mental states, their own beliefs and desires, their own ways of viewing the world? …
Stephen Colbert Can’t Use ‘Colbert Report’ Character on CBS, Lawyers Say
So “Late Show” introduces world to the ex-Comedy Central host’s “identical twin cousin”
THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
Stephen Colbert will never appear on Stephen Colbert‘s show ever again.
We’ll let the “Late Show” host explain below — he’s referring to a bit from last week in which he and Jon Stewart brought back the popular “Colbert Report” host character.
“Immediately after that show, CBS’ top lawyer was contacted by the top lawyer from another company to say that the character Stephen Colbert is their intellectual property,” the real Colbert said. “So, it is with a heavy heart, that I announce that — thanks to corporate lawyers — the character of Stephen Colbert, host of ‘The Colbert Report,’ will never be seen again.” …
HOW ANTI-FOG SPRAY KEEPS GLASSES FROM FOGGING UP
The “fog” you may sometimes experience on your glasses or goggles occurs when atmospheric humidity near the lens condenses; this happens due to a relatively significant discrepancy between the temperature of the lens and the surrounding air. As the surface attempts to reach an equilibrium between the two temperatures, heat energy is given up; and, as the energy within the gaseous water molecules decreases, they form into tiny water droplets on your lens, otherwise known as “fog.”
So how do we stop the fog from forming on your glasses? There are two primary types of substances used here- surfactants and hydrophilic ingredients. …
Video Goodnesses
(nd not-so-goodnesses)
(nd not-so-goodnesses)
During the pre-show Q&A, an audience member asked Stephen a question about Donald Trump. And since the show wasn’t broadcasting, he had no reason to sugarcoat it.
THANKS to HCBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
Seth takes a closer look at the second day of the Democratic National Convention.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.