C.L. Coleman

Asylum seekers are risking their lives to make their way into Canada on foot to exploit a loophole in the US-Canada Safe Third Country agreement. Immigration experts expect the number of individuals attempting this journey will only increase under the incoming US administration.

In October 2009, a user named Hi Walter! Its me Patrick! uploaded a video to YouTube called “Hi Walter! I got a new gf today!” In it, a man with glasses faces the camera and talks about meeting a girl at the mall. In the video’s last few seconds, the man promises to introduce the girl. The shot then switches, and he appears in a dark room, where he opens a door to reveal a young woman—bound and screaming on the floor.

Read more...

Vote people, for God's sake, vote

by digby

This is from the NY Times Upshot this morning:


It's just too goddamned close.

We can't have Trump for president.

He's so happy

by digby


After a tsunami of criticism he tweeted some condolences.

He's seriously disturbed.

.

Beach bans on the Burkini in France sparks widespread debate. Burkinis (or burqinis) are a type of swimwear for women that offers full coverage. They are mostly, but not exclusively, worn by Muslim women. Now three French cities have banned the burkini from their beaches: Cannes, Villeneuve-Loubet and Sisco on the island of Corsica have done so, and Le Touquet on the Atlantic coast is planning to do the same. This has understandably lead to a lot of discussion.

The French government defends these decisions, and some people agree. Muslim women in the UK give their opinions; one of them is Remona Aly. And in Sydney, Sarah Malik does the same.

For 60% of humanity, the Internet as we know it does not exist, so we built a new way to share information.

"Through working with the UK Space Agency on the Astro Pi project we've learnt about something called Outernet...Anyone receiving the broadcast then has access to all that stuff for free! The idea is that you can receive it in locations around the world where there is little or no internet infrastructure; or perhaps where the regime in power curtails access to information." A thorough explanation of the key concepts and technology.

Founder: Saša_Vučinić
"In 1995, with seed money from George Soros's Open Society Institute, Vučinić and the late Washington Post journalist Stuart Auerbach formed the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), an international non-profit organization based in New York City, Prague, Hong Kong, and Singapore with the goal of establishing a fund to provide loans to independent press organizations in new democracies with histories of government oppression of the media...By 2012, MDLF had made over $100 million in loans to newspapers, magazines, radio stations and websites around the world, funding over 200 projects in 30 countries; by the same year, over 36 million people in the developing world were getting their news from media financed by MDLF."

For seven years, Homestuck gave LGBTQ fans the opportunity to find reflections of themselves, build relationships and community with other queer people, and become confident enough to own their identities.

The post Bisexual Trolls and Non-Binary Sprites: The Power of LGBTQ Visibility in “Homestuck” appeared first on Autostraddle.

Picture Eric Schmidt wearing a leather Top hat and a waistcoat made of mirrors No really, the article contains a picture of Executive Chairman of Alphabet (previously one of the Google CEOs) Eric Schmitdt wearing a leather Top hat and a waistcoat adorned with mirrors

What do you do if you want to have a Burning Man festival vibe, but with opulence, luxury, and most importantly of all - all your super rich friends ?

Why you hold your own event in the Vegas desert of course!

Further Future is a festival supposedly unlike any other:

A new kind of music and lifestyle festival. From 12pm on Friday April 29 through sunset on Sunday May 1, 2016, we will gather at the Moapa River Indian Reservation near Las Vegas, Nevada, for a weekend filled with incredible music, visionary speakers, inspirational art and human connection

Across 49 acres, and with approx 5,000 attendees this is THE non-networking, networking event/party/gathering that the best, of the best, of the richest gather at. VIP packages can include bonuses like a 'entourage concierge, spa facilities, your own 'Airstream village enclave' and of course your own personal dedicated 'lifestyle assistant'

The 2016 'Transformational' festival is over, but if you earn enough and know the right people you too can start planning to attend the 2017 event.

As Robert Scott, (entertainment lawyer) one of the co-founders of the event states:
"There's a lot of ways to find an epiphany. Being in the desert under hard conditions is one way to bring yourself into a receptive state, I suppose, but here, all these things are putting you in the same place gently,"

Oklahoma introduces a bunch of anti-gay bills which can potentially be really dangerous, Hillary Clinton officially wins the Iowa Caucus, 16-year-old Gynnya McMillen wasn't given CPR until 11 minutes after she was found "cold" in her cell, a father in Tennessee was arrested for chasing his daughter with a knife after she came out to him, Germany opens its first LGBT refugee shelter and more news stories!

The post Oklahoma Sets New Record Number of Anti-LGBT Bills, Can’t Wait to Discriminate appeared first on Autostraddle.

"It's like parenting or establishing friendships, or pretty much any other intimate, cooperative endeavor: It takes attention and recalibration to be done well even when you've made a particularly felicitous match." Sex can be unpleasant, awkward, or even upsetting - and that's okay. In Defense of Bad Sex.

Cruz's march through the South

by digby


I wrote about Cruz's strategy for Salon this morning:


It's taken a while for the chattering classes to come around to the idea that Donald Trump may actually pull this thing off. It's hard to blame them. It's as if we all went to sleep one night and woke up in an alternate universe. But they do seem to have accepted it. He came close to winning Iowa, a notoriously buttoned up electorate and won decisively in New Hampshire. All the polling going forward looks good. It's just become impossible to deny it any longer.

But what about his nemesis Ted Cruz? Are they ready to accept that he is likely to be the last man standing who can stop Trump? Until yesterday one would have had to say no. With South Carolina governor Nikki Haley's dagger to Jeb Bush's heart (her endorsement of Marco Rubio) the whole universe of political pundits were ready to call the number two slot for the Florida Senator. There seems to be a very deep desire to see this boyish neoconservative hawk survive despite his somewhat bizarre personality tics. (In this primary race, it's conventional political rhetoric that's the kiss of death.)

But at the end of the day, some new numbers came out that electrified the political press corps and changed the conversation once again:

Surprise: Trump falls behind Cruz in natl NBC/WSJ poll
Cruz 28
Trump 26
Rubio 17
Kasich 11
Carson 10
Jeb 4

In Jan, was Trump 33, Cruz 20

— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) February 17, 2016

There are a number of other polls which still show Trump at number one and some explanatory data about that NBC/WSJ poll which shows that they may have sampled more self-identified "very conservative" voters.  Nonetheless this was big news just three days out from the South Carolina primary where the latest polling shows Trump in the lead and Cruz and Rubio vying for second place.

NBC's Hallie Jackson interviewed Cruz about his surprise showing in the network's poll and he was obviously pleased as punch, enjoying his moment

Hallie Jackson: You're topping Donald Trump nationally. You are now beating Donald Trump nationally according to your new polling. What is that like for you? What's that moment like when you sort of see these numbers and you see what's happening? 

Ted Cruz: It's tremendously encouraging ... To be leading the field nationally, I think as a result 

Hallie Jackson: Did you ever think you'd be here? 

Ted Cruz: That was always the plan. That's how you win. You've got to get to first place to win,. I think that is the result of a couple of things. On, I think it's the result of the breadth of support.

Actually, you don't need to get to first place in the vote in the Republican primary to win. As Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium explains, the Republicans turned their primary campaign into a Byzantine maze of varying rules and regulations in order to facilitate an easier path to victory for the establishment front runner.  Unfortunately, that has resulted instead in a tilted playing field for Donald Trump to win with his 35% or so as long as he's got several people in competition. That pile-up in the establishment lane doesn't look to be clearing any time soon.

The fact remains that while Cruz may not be in first place anywhere but this one poll, he is still in the hunt and it's an interesting question as to why that is. After all, it's a matter of faith that nobody can stand him. I have written before about his brains and work ethic mitigating that liability. He also has a sophisticated southern strategy that's about to get its first test on Saturday when South Carolina voters go to the polls. The Cruz campaign has taken on the feel of a religious mission. Following the strong data driven tactics of Iowa and relying on its "Camp Cruz" evangelical volunteers, he believes that he can grind out a win in Southern Carolina and ride the momentum through the March 1st states with a superior grand game and sheer will.

Eliana Johnson at national Review went inside the campaign:

At around 8:40 a.m. on Monday, the volunteers emerge from their rooms, line up against the walls, and put their hands on each other’s shoulders to form a chain that runs the length of the hallway. Handmade signs line the walls. One reads: “Conservatives, Christians, and GRASSROOTS MATTER!”

This is Value Place, an extended-stay hotel just off Interstate 385 in Simpsonville, S.C. Until the Palmetto State’s primary concludes Saturday night, it is also Camp Cruz, home to those who have flocked here to volunteer their time for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. Right now, they’re packed three to a room. I ask if roommates knew each other beforehand. “No, but they do now, very well,” says Mark Hayes, a retired chief financial officer who’s running the show here along with his wife, Nancy, a veteran of 19 Republican campaigns who also works for Joe the Plumber of “spread the wealth around” fame.

At Iowa’s Camp Cruz, dozens of volunteers packed an old college dorm in the months leading up to the caucus, at times cramming extra mattresses into rooms already housing two people. When I stayed over on the eve of the caucus, five grown men vacated a room for me. In South Carolina, Cruz’s team is scaling up the data-driven ground operation that propelled it to victory in Iowa. The campaign’s Iowa state director, Bryan English, is on the ground here coordinating with key surrogates, and a second Camp Cruz location at a Quality Inn & Suites in Greenville opened its doors on Monday.

In 2012 evangelicals made up two thirds of the South Carolina primary electorate and the Tea Party remains a strong factor. This is Cruz's natural constituency and the assumption is that if he finishes strongly there it will give him the momentum he needs to march through the Southern states gathering delegates and momentum for the rest of the race. Conversely, if he fails there his modern targeting campaign will have been proven a bust and he may just collapse.

Cruz has been saying that he's bringing together the "Reagan coalition" which he defines as evangelicals, conservatives, Reagan Democrats and young people. Reagan Democrats haven't existed for 30 years (we call them "Republicans" now) and there's little evidence that he's attracting young people any more than anyone else in the race. And according to Johnson, the conservatives he's targeting are more aptly referred to as the "very" conservative, which do exist in large numbers in the south but not in the numbers Cruz is going to need. So there's a bit of wishful thinking in his plan.

As for evangelicals, it turns out that they are not a monolith either. It sounds very strange when Donald Trump, the thrice married libertine, says that he's attracting them, but he is. And this article by Kevin Cirrilli at Bloomberg explains why. Cruz appeals to the traditional old school evangelicals, Trump to the new school disco evangelicals:

With the state's primary just four days away, Trump is reaching out to new-school evangelicals, whose pastors become celebrities and best-selling authors and whose church choirs can rise to become chart-topping Christian pop-rock bands.

In new-school churches, altars are often replaced by elaborate stages with light shows that rival backdrops from American Idol performances. Holy water fountains are converted into jacuzzi-sized baptism pools. For the purveyors of this flashier packaging of Christianity, it's all part of an effort to shepherd disenfranchised Christians back to Jesus, much in the same way that Trump is able to convert his own celebrityhood and financial success into a political following that attracts first-time voters.

Of course Trump would appeal to the people who believe in "prosperity theology" which teaches that Christians who are aligned with God can also attain financial success. And that presents a major problem for Cruz who needs every evangelical he can get.

Eliana Johnson points out that he modeled his campaign on an earlier southern strategy that vaulted an unknown and deeply mistrusted anti-establishment born-again candidate into the White House, a man with whom Ted Cruz would never want to be associated. It was Jimmy Carter:

The Camp Cruz phenomenon was inspired, ironically, by Jimmy Carter’s Peanut Brigade, a band of supporters who barnstormed the country on Carter’s behalf. Cruz fundraiser Paul Porter, a Florida real-estate investor, proposed the idea to campaign manager Jeff Roe on his first visit to Cruz’s Houston campaign headquarters last September. The idea, he says, is to take volunteers and “recruit them, lodge them, and organize them.”

(There are other similarities between the Cruz and Carter efforts: Like Carter, Cruz outworks his rivals on the campaign trail, and he faces massive resistance within his own party from what has come to be known as the “ABC” movement — Anybody But Cruz. In 1976, an effort with the same name was led by liberal Democrats looking to stop Carter.)

That strategy worked for Carter in 1976 and maybe it will work for Cruz in 2016.  But Carter wasn't running against a charismatic television star with unlimited money at the time. That would come four years later. And he lost that one in a landslide.

David Bowie invites you to enjoy his new 10-minute video and single, "Blackstar" [SLYT]. Synopsis: Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah.

With realistic fur, purrs and meows - and sensors that respond to petting and hugs with familiar, cat-like actions - Companion Pets deliver a soothing, joyful experience that inspires smiles, laughter and fond memories for people of all ages. Hasbro is now offering lifelike robotic cats to provide companionship for seniors.

Dear People Who Live in Fancy Tiny Houses... "You look so freakin' happy in that Dwell Magazine article or Buzzfeed post, but c'mon, you can't tell me that you don't lie awake at night, your face four inches from the ceiling because the only place your bed fits is above the kitchen sink which also acts as your shower, and think, I've made a terrible mistake."

Frankenstein's monster has turned on his daddy

by digby

This is wonderful:

While Trump barnstormed rival media outlets over the last few days, dissing Kelly and Fox at virtually every turn, Ailes remained surprisingly restrained in his response, even after Trump told CNN on Friday that Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever” during the debate. Paralyzed by the volume of pro-Trump emails from Fox’s loyal viewers, Ailes’s only statement, released a day after the debate, said that he was “extremely proud of all of the moderators.” Fox’s famously aggressive PR apparatus has not gone after Trump to defend Kelly, and although Kelly’s executive producer Tom Lowell did send out an email to colleagues thanking them for their support in recent days, that support has been private.

Trump is now back in Fox’s fold, but the lengths that Ailes went to in order to win Trump back revealed a rare moment of weakness for the Fox chief. Since Trump’s “blood” comment on Friday, some Fox executives have wanted Ailes to personally call Trump and broker a truce. But, according to a Fox source, Ailes and his lawyer Peter Johnson Jr. felt that calling Trump was a risk they couldn’t take, given Trump's erratic behavior on the campaign trail. What if Trump leaked the conversation on Twitter like he did with Lindsey Graham’s cell-phone number? (When reached by email about this story, Johnson responded: “The reporting is false and obviously fabricated.”)

Ailes’s unwillingness to pick up the phone meant that Fox was flying blind. “They didn’t know what Trump was thinking,” one source explained. It was left to emissaries to try and discern Trump’s next move. But, after Trump told Sean Hannity in a weekend phone call that he was “never doing Fox again,” appeared on four non-Fox public-affairs shows on Sunday, and did interviews with Today and Morning Joe on Monday, Ailes raised the white flag and picked up the phone on Monday morning. “Roger wanted a friendly relationship,” the source explained.

Ailes offered Trump the chance to do a special on Kelly’s prime-time show to clear the air — an offer Trump flatly refused. “Donald was sufficiently pissed off that there was no way that was happening,” a person familiar with the call told me. According to the source, Trump’s ire was especially stoked after Howard Stern called to tell him about a 2010 interview in which Kelly joked about her breasts and her husband’s penis. Ailes offered other shows, and Trump agreed to appear on Fox and Friends and Hannity, two venues that have been loyal boosters of his candidacy.

Ailes’s next order of business was getting Trump to disarm publicly. According to a source briefed on the negotiations, Ailes called Trump "multiple" times yesterday morning “begging” him to tweet out that they had made peace. Trump refused at first, but finally consented. “Roger Ailes just called,” he tweeted at 10:35 a.m. yesterday. “He is a great guy & assures me that ‘Trump’ will be treated fairly on ‪@FoxNews. His word is always good!”[...]

This morning, Ailes got his wish: Trump returned with a chatty segment on Fox and Friends. “I’m glad we’re friends again,” co-host Steve Doocy said at the opening of the segment. “We’ve always been friends,” Trump replied, disingenuously.

But resecuring Trump access could prove to be a temporary victory for Ailes. Having backed down to the GOP front-runner and all but sacrificed one of his biggest stars to appease the conservative base — a.k.a. Fox viewers — Ailes has set a dangerous precedent. The message is clear: Fox reports, but the audience decides.

It's his audience, he created it. Now he has to live with it.

Just a little reminder of Ailes' contribution to the misogynistic culture that Fox News perpetuates:

Ailes: "Move That Damn Laptop, I Can't See Her Legs!"

Sherman relayed an anecdote of Ailes regarding former Fox News reporter Kiran Chetry: "Anchor Bob Sellers remembered Ailes once calling the control booth. 'I was doing the weekend show with Kiran Chetry. He called up and said, 'Move that damn laptop, I can't see her legs!'"

Ailes: "I Did Not Spend X-Number Of Dollars On A Glass Desk For Her To Wear Pant Suits"

Sherman reports that Ailes "had admiration for [former Fox host Catherine Crier's] legs" and was livid when she appeared on-air wearing pants:

"Be more opinionated," he told Crier in one meeting. "The guests are there as a foil for you." He also disagreed with her dress. "He had admiration for her legs," a senior executive said. In one meeting, Ailes barked, "Tell Catherine I did not spend x-number of dollars on a glass desk for her to wear pant suits." [The Loudest Voice in the Room, pg 238]

Elsewhere in the book, discussing Megyn Kelly's famous walk through the newsroom on election night in 2012, Sherman quotes a Fox employee saying, "This is Fox News, so anytime there's a chance to show off Megyn Kelly's legs they'll go for it."

I think the chances that Ailes hasn't said of a woman employee who complained about something that she's "on the rag" to be somewhere around 1 in one trillion.


.

The Best Illusion of the Year Contest (previously, previouslier) has announced the 2015 winners.

1st: Splitting Colors (explanation) by Mark Vergeer.

2nd: Ambiguous Garage Roof (explanation) by Kokichi Sugihara. Bonus: more of his work here, where you can find instructions on how to build your own Ambiguous Garage Roof from cardboard. 3rd: The Day It Rained on Lowry (epilepsy warning; explanation) by Michael Pickard.

See all top 10 finalists here, including an entry on Disambiguating #theDress (previously).

Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck. Musings on the potentially devastating economic impact of self-driving trucks. Previously.

A couple of readers forwarded me summaries of an evolutionary psychology study about what angle of lower back men* view as the most beautiful in women.  Thanks for those summaries.

I wasn't going to write about the study, because it didn't beep loudly enough on my freakometer**. 

But then I Googled it and found something fascinating about who quoted it:  The first ten pages of Google gave me a large harvest of pickup artist sites, a few misogyny sites and, in general, lots of tough-prehistoric-guy sites.  Many of those sites summarized the study as being about large butts, which is incorrect, but then misunderstanding studies is more common than understanding them.  What was more interesting is that this study  seems particularly loved by those who do not particularly love women.

That's one fascinating fact.  The other fascinating fact is a comment in one study summary:

The second study addressed the question of whether men prefer this angle because it reflects larger buttocks, or whether it really can be attributed to the angle in the spine itself.
Approximately 200 men were presented with groups of images of women with differing buttock size and vertebral wedging, but maintaining a 45.5-degree curve. Men consistently preferred women whose spinal curvature was closer to optimum regardless of buttock size.
"This enabled us to conclusively show that men prefer women who exhibit specific angles of spinal curvature over buttock mass," said the study's co-author Eric Russell, a visiting researcher from UT Arlington.
This morphology and men's psychological preference toward it have evolved over thousands of years, and they won't disappear over night.
"This tight fit between evolutionary pressures and modern humans' psychology, including our standards of attractiveness, highlights the usefulness that an evolutionary approach can have for expanding our knowledge not just of the natural sciences, but also the social sciences," Lewis said.

Emphasis is mine.

To see why that comment is very weird, consider the background of this study:  It is about the natural bend in the lower back of both men and women and the sex differences in the wedged lumbar vertebrae.  Men have two of them wedged whereas women have three.  That wedging, in general, may be related to bipedalism, and the sex difference certainly seems to be, because (from 2007):

"The body must change in dramatic ways to accommodate the baby, and these changes affect a woman's stability and posture," said researcher Katherine Whitcome, an anthropologist at Harvard University. "It turns out that enhanced curvature and reinforcement of the lower spine are key to maintaining normal activities during pregnancy."  

They found a similar trend in the vertebrae of early humans called Australopithecus, but not in those of chimpanzees (our crawling relatives). The finding suggests these spine adaptations evolved at least two million years ago when human ancestors first began to walk upright. Our four-legged ape ancestors didn't have to accomodate [sic] for the extra baby weight, because their bellies just hung lower and there was no significant shift in the center of gravity.

"Natural selection favored this adaptation because it reduces extra stress on a pregnant female's spine," said researcher Liza Shapiro, an anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin. "Without the adaptation, pregnancy would have placed a heavier burden on back muscles, causing considerable pain and fatigue and possibly limiting foraging capacity and the ability to escape from predators."

Emphasis is mine.

I guess you can argue that two million years could equal "thousands of years?"
But why would the morphology disappear?  There's no reason for it to disappear, because it is useful.  To talk about it disappearing and about "thousands of years" seems very odd.  Very odd, indeed, unless one is aware of the way evolutionary psychology is sold to us as the science of Stone Age women in high heels and Stone Age men driving sports cars and so on.

Then to the study itself (behind a paywall, sadly).  It consists of two sub-studies.  In both of them young male students in the US are asked to state which female side view they prefer.  The women are drawn identical except for changes in the curvature of the lower spine in one study (too little, too much and just right) and in both the curvature and the muscles or fat of the buttocks in the other study.*** 


The researchers conclude that the optimal curvature or lordosis is the preferred one in both studies. Thus:

The convergent results from these independent studies reveal a strong fit between observed standards of attractiveness and a priori predictions based on selective pressures operating during hominin evolution. These tests suggest that selection fashioned not only spinal structures in women for solving pregnancy-related challenges, but also attendant psychological adaptations in men for assessing female physical attractiveness on the basis of these structures.

So what do we mean by "optimal" curvature here?  That's where things get a bit hairy, because it turns out to be the average curvature in the female lower spine.

The authors acknowledge that, but  argue that they have found the reason why the average curvature would be preferred by men, and this has to do with mating and such.   I'd like to see the same study done with heterosexual women, to see if women would rank the pictures the same way or not.  If the explanation in this study holds water we shouldn't find that to be the case, right?  But my guess is that women would rank the pictures the same way.  At least I did.

I would also like to know what percentage of women have curvatures other than the optimal or average one.  If that percentage is very small then the study might amount to something very different from its assertions.  For example, spot-the-woman's-body-in-these-pictures or spot-the-healthy-spine.

To conclude, it's possible that men have an "evolved" mating preference for women with healthy spines.  I wouldn't be surprised, though neither would I be surprised to find that heterosexual women have the same "preference" for how women's spines should look.  What's more fascinating than the study itself are those sites (other than science sites) which link to it.  They have a particular axe to grind and it's the idea that evolutionary psychology of a certain kind gives them a blueprint permission to be sexists and so on.

---
*I assume these are heterosexual men, though I don't think the study mentioned that.  Just the usual stuff about the men being very young and psychology students at an American University.  Soon we will have a whole genre about prehistory where the evidence comes from American undergraduates!  No possibility of cultural confounding there!

**It didn't suggest, for instance, that managing to get oneself raped is a useful evolutionary adaptation.  Yes, Virginia, that study exists inside the weird and wonderful world of evolutionary psychology.

***  Here, for example, is one picture from the second study where all three women exhibit the same "buttock protrusion" but the causes are different:

This is simply a 1983 concert video of Billy Squier performing the single greatest cocaine fueled butt rock song ever made in all of its glory.

Here is Everybody Wants You from the same concert.

This is a full 1981 Los Angeles concert of Mr. Squier and his band. The Lonely is the Night performance in 1981 tears it up better but lacks the famous intro riff and starts off with 1:40 of guitar goofiness.

Billy Squier was previously featured on Metafilter where we all enjoyed the moment he sabotaged his career with his homage to snorting white powder in this hilarious video for Rock Me Tonight although this musicless version is arguably funnier.

Billy Squier broke through in 1981 when he released Don't Say No, a largely forgotten album, that none the less holds up remarkably well despite (or because of) being the quintessentially corporate rock album about meaningless sex, partying, and dick wagging. A.V. Club review.

In case you were worried about poor Mr. Squier's general irrelevance in 2015, don't. It turns out he is among the most heavily sampled artists in hip-hop forming the back bone of songs by everyone from Run-DMC to Jay Z (Squier's The Big Beat is used in "99 Problems"). He's been sampled nearly 200 times and it is estimated that his unlikely hip-hop career has earned him millions.

Amanda Knox Acquitted of 2007 Murder by Italy's Highest Court [New York Times]

"ROME — Italy's highest court overturned the murder convictions of Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend on Friday, throwing out all charges and ending a long-running courtroom drama over the killing of a British student in 2007. The ruling in favor of Ms. Knox, a 27-year-old former exchange student from Seattle, and her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, 31, was a shock in Italy, where the convictions had been expected to be upheld in the stabbing death of the British student, Meredith Kercher.

Previously. Previously. Previously. Previously.

Originally released on the PSP system in 2010 the first Danganronpa game called Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc ( (ダンガンロンパ 希望の学園と絶望の高校生) developed and produced by Spike Chunsoft . It featured a classic whodunit game where the MC (Makoto Naegi) a Japanese teenger found himself stuck in a strange high school setting with a unique cast.

Although this isn't exactly a new situation as similar settings where used for prior titles 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors and Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward essentially survival games in a locked room. In this case, the player interacts with the other cast members in a VN style format to gather clues about the crime (exposition), explore the rooms (investigation), and finally a school trial to decide who the culprit is at the end.

It sounds easier than done because we find out that Makoto and everyone else has anesmia other than their names and their "talent." As this is not a ordinary HS but one of the top schools in the nation for exclusive students who ranked the best in their field for example, Ultimate Writing Prodigy a young women who is famous for her novels featuring fishermen.

Before anyone could get their bearings they meet Monokuma who tells them are trapped inside the building unless they are successful committing a murder and getting away with it too. To raise the stakes before each round he sets up situations where he offers prizes to the winner and indicates he knows exactly their entire past and present lives were like before they woke up here.

However, what made this series stand out from the others is the use of popular media references (both Japanese/Western), the villain a stuffed bear named Monokuma, and slightly absurd plot line which never takes itself too seriously written by Kazutaka Kodaka. In a genre where anime is too common and sometimes too cookie-cutter the art manages to be memorable and the use of pink blood (because of censorship) end up with a stylish art direction by Rui Komatsuzaki.

Despite doing well in Japan's domestic market it hadn't made it's debut overseas as the PSP market winded down here. Fortunately, orenronen took it upon himself to do a LP (let's play) of the original where he translated most of the conversations and added related commentary to each scene. At the same time a separate group called: Project Zetsubou created a fan-patch for the PSP edition and there were plans for the the sequel Dangan Ronpa 2:Good-bye Despair (スーパーダンガンロンパ2 さよなら絶望学園).

However, NIS announced in 2013 they would localize the first game for the Vita soon but instead of releasing the remake of the two games (Danganronpa 1・2 Reload) they would release them individually in 2014. Currently, the two games are out for Vita for the overseas market and on Android, iOS, PSP for the domestic Japanese market.

The Vita edition of DR1 and DR2 are similar to their PSP counterparts but feature a separate mini-game where the player could befriend other characters in a "school" and "island" modes respectively but not have to re-do the trials or mini-games all over again.

Not to forget, a few weeks ago NIS America informed their fanbase they'd be localizing Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (絶対絶望少女 ダンガンロンパ ) which is a spin-off story featuring a few minor characters. So far there are plans to create a third game in the series seen from a official trailer but details are still kept secret for now.

Also, there's a spinoff anime series Danganronpa: The Animation (ダンガンロンパ: The Animation) which covered the first game and introduced newcomers into the Dangan Ronpa universe and refreshed old players on the old cases. In a related note they also produced a live stage play, light novels, drama CDs, manga, and guides were also released which added background information and character profiles some of which were translated by fans into English.

Side note: Some of the links contain spoilers for the main stories and the Danganronpa series itself is rated M (mature) as it has stylized images of deaths, trauma, and other less cheerful events. Definitely NFSW.

The Profound Lack of Empathy in "My Husband's Not Gay"

Rolling Stone: 4 Reasons TLC's 'My Husband's Not Gay' is Dangerous for LGBT People: "Bisexuality is a thing. This is not it.

Slate: My Husband's Not Gay Misunderstands What It Means to Be Gay Pret, one of the men with a history of ex-gay activism, explains how, growing up, "I thought for a long time that I was gay. I thought that these feelings defined me." Later he says: "If it was accepted to be a homosexual in the church, would I be gay? Or would I live that lifestyle? Maybe eight or nine years ago, 10 years ago, the answer would be yes. Today? No." Clearly, these are people who believe that if they had made different choices, they would be gay men, not people who believe that being gay is categorically distinct from their experience of same-sex attraction.

Salt Lake Tribune: Utahns in 'My Husband's Not Gay' promote discredited 'conversion therapy'

The New York Times: Where Being in Denial Is Right at Home: The program does have a few interesting and genuine-sounding moments in which the couples or their friends explore the collision of faith and feelings, but they'll be drowned out.

QOTW: Erick Erickson

by digby

On why he thinks Hillary isn't the shoo-in for the nomination everyone thinks she is:

She’s going to be old!I don’t know how far back they can pull her face!

He's such a beautiful man himself --- the Don Draper of right wing commentators --- that he's certainly got standing to say something like this.

As I have discussed many times before, this was a theme of the 2008 campaign as well, with people from all sides of the political spectrum feeling free to point out that older women are such repulsive creatures they should not even be seen in public much less run for public office.

I don't expect to see Democrats saying that sort of thing this time unless a sexy dark horse candidate emerges who doesn't fit the old hag profile. (No Liz Warren for you! She's over 60 ...) But the Republicans are going to have a field day with it. It will be interesting to see how the GOP women react and if they join in the fun. It wouldn't surprise me. But in the back of their minds they know that they too are going to be old some day --- and that this is how the men they associate with will think of them.

Is there even one woman anchor over 50 on Fox News? Over 40? I can't think of one. Of course, their strongest demographic is conservative, white men over 60.  The last thing they want to see is someone who looks like their wives. After all, they all look like George Clooney.

Update: I stand corrected. Greta Van Susteren is a Fox News anchor and she's 59. I do recall that when Ailes lured her over from CNN he insisted that she get some surgery though. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But she'd better not run for office or people will give her grief for having it done. You can't win this game.
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Where Have All the Lobbyists Gone? (SL The Nation). Daschle, a "policy adviser" to a range of corporate interests and a close confidant of many top Democrats, has become one of the most famous unregistered lobbyists in the city. In fact, his escapades as a consigliere and go-between for business leaders and politicians, including President Obama, are so well known that among ethics watchdogs, the technicality in the law that allows lobbyists to evade registration has become known as the "Daschle Loophole."

The Hierarchy of Hexagons. School geometry seems to me one of the most lifeless topics in all of mathematics. And the worst of all? The hierarchy of quadrilaterals.

As a result of new coverage under the ACA, many previously uninsured people in eastern Kentucky are giving the nation a glimpse of life under the new health care law.

The Internet Archive Console Living Room harkens back to the revolution of the change in the hearth of the home, when the fireplace and later television were transformed by gaming consoles into a center of videogame entertainment... Simply click on a system below to browse through available games and cartridges and try them out. Where possible, links to manuals and additional information are available for reference.

Yes, that is the Prime Minister of Canada and yes, his wife is holding a chinchilla.

(submitted by Marc)

For anyone interested in various fundamentals of electrical engineering without too much detail on the gritty math (and more focus on the concepts), check out the US Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series (NEETS).

The entire soundtrack to the Coen brother's upcoming movie "Inside Llewyn Davis" can now be listened to in its entirety online, and for free.

(previously)