IKEA Monkey

After a pretty chalk first day of the NCAA Tournament, the 13-seeded UC Irvine Anteaters picked up the biggest upset of the competition so far, knocking off co-Big 12 champs Kansas State in a 70-64 win.

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Schitt’s Creek, the CBC and Pop TV comedy that’s persevered thanks to its devoted and vocal audience, has been renewed for its sixth and final season, Variety reports. In a statement, co-creators Dan and Eugene Levy assert that it was their decision to end the series at what many might describe as its creative peak.

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What the ...

The newest sport hitting Russia is slapping people silly. Literally.

The first-ever “Male Slapping Championship” took place in Siberia and the result was, well ... see for yourself.

This is truly a mismatch of styles. Dude in white is bringing the traditional, bog-standard slap to the table and it’s clear how bad an idea that was. I’m not going to say that beard guy was cheating here, because I’m not a sanctioned slap judge (also I would not like to be slapped by him), but this is clearly a punch-slap hybrid that used plenty of wrist power to deliver the blow.

Dude in white didn’t stand a chance against this slap assault. It ended up winning beard guy a cool 30,000 rubles ($466). I don’t know if I’d endure this kind of punishment for $466, but I’m also averse to the idea of being slapped in the face.

Now, please enjoy more highlights from the competition.

Kennedy—as in, the former MTV VJ Kennedy, née Lisa Kennedy Montgomery—has been making excellent use of her time lately, brainstorming potential nicknames for presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke. So far, she’s landed on Beta O’Dork and her coworkers seem very fond of her wit.

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Many Nebraska towns have become islands, highways are now fast-flowing streams and dozens of flood records have been broken -- but there may be more flooding to come.

This week, Last Week Tonight covered the topic of public shaming and the episode included an interview by host John Oliver of Monica Lewinsky, who shared her experience of going through perhaps the most intense and enduring instance of public shaming ever.

The whole video is worth watching, but if you want to skip to the Lewinsky interview, it starts around the 15:00 mark. Lewinsky doesn’t do a lot of interviews, and it’s interesting that Oliver has built enough trust to get one, especially as the host of a comedy show.

Tags: interviews   John Oliver   Monica Lewinsky   video

Students perform haka to pay tribute to classmates killed in Christchurch www.youtube.com

It is late in the day on what looks like another week of hell, so here is a video of some New Zealand teenagers who burst into a spontaneous "haka" chant in remembrance of two of their friends who were murdered by a white supremacist who expected his terrorism would start a race war. He failed, and the kids -- from schools all over Christchurch -- are wonderful.

This is now your open thread. If you want to comment, you'll need to click the headline!

[WaPo / Guardian on YouTube]

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So much is still going on with all the news of the New Zealand mosque shooting that we figured it'd be best to just do a general round-up, rather than hitting each of these things individually.

Good news first.

New Zealand Gets Right On Gun Control, Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons.

Less than 24 hours after the mass shooting that left 49 people dead, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that her country's gun control laws will be tightening up and that they will be banning military-style semi-automatic weapons. The country is following in the footsteps of its neighbor, Australia, which enacted strict gun control after a mass shooting in 1996, leading to a 47% decrease in the years following the ban. They have had no mass shootings since.

Here in America, we're just gonna keep throwing our hands up into the air "Gosh, why does this HAPPEN?" while still not doing anything about gun control no matter how many mass shootings we have. You know, because the gun nuts need all that innocent blood for watering their tree of liberty or what have you. [ThinkProgress]

Australia Bans Milo Yiannopoulis, Again.

While New Zealand is making good decisions on gun control, Australia has once again banned Milo Yiannopoulos over his stupid ass Islamaphobic comments regarding the shooting. Again. They banned him before, it somehow got lifted and he was planning to tour the country this year, but that's not happening now. Good!

On Instagram, Yiannopoulos claimed that people like the New Zealand shooter are not radicalized by conservatives, but rather by liberals and "barbaric, alien religious cultures."

Whatever you think about her, @realcandaceowens had nothing to do with what happened in New Zealand. People aren't radicalized by their own side. They get pushed to the far-Right BY THE LEFT, not by others on the Right.
.
Everyone on the Right in public life is constantly rejecting ethnonationalism and violence. I, for instance, have spent my entire career denouncing political violence. Candace has never been especially controversial and has never had many far-Right fans. She gets less popular the further Right you go.
.
Likewise, the violence directly inspired by grassroots Right-wing media figures comes from Antifa, not our supporters. Attacks like this happen because the establishment panders to and mollycoddles extremist Leftism and barbaric, alien religious cultures. Not when someone dares to point it out.

Yeah, this is all definitely our fault and not the fault of people who say things like "barbaric, alien religious cultures."

It's very interesting how conservatives just can't take personal responsibility for their own views. It's always our fault! We push them! They're delicate! If everyone just agreed with them on everything and told them they were wonderful and special all the time, they wouldn't have to do things like shoot up mosques!

That is bullshit. I defy any conservative to name one thing they wouldn't be so "far right" on if the left hadn't "pushed them too far." If that's your reason for believing something, you're a weird, spiteful moron and no one should take you or your beliefs seriously. [NYDailyNews]

In Which The Right Scrambles Desperately To Pretend The Shooter Was A Secret Leftist...

Just like every other time this kind of thing happens, the Right is going all googoots trying to find a way to claim the shooter was actually a big giant liberal who shot people for liberal reasons. Kellyanne Conway insisted the shooter was actually an eco-terrorist. Rush Limbaugh claims this is all a false flag and that the shooter was only pretending to be a white supremacist in order to make white supremacists look bad.

Via Media Matters:

The idea that there is far more crazed right-wing terrorism in America than there is any other kind is nothing more than a media narrative manufactured out of whole cloth, and it's just waiting for events like this to take place, and this is what happens, folks. I don't know, you probably get up and you see this news story and you just -- in addition to all of the emotion you have over the sheer shock, terror, and horror of it all, then you realize you're going to face a whole day of the politicization of it. You realize you're going to face a whole day of Donald Trump being blamed for it, or you being blamed for it, or things you believe in being blamed for it.[...]

Another thing that happens here when these events happen, you have all kinds of speculation that erupts. And there is an ongoing theory -- Mr. Snerdley, correct me if I'm wrong about this. There's an ongoing theory that the shooter himself may in fact be a leftist who writes the manifesto and then goes out and performs the deed purposely to smear his political enemies, knowing he's going to get shot in the process. You know you just can't -- you can't immediately discount this. The left is this insane, they are this crazy. And then if that's exactly what the guy is trying to do then he's hit a home run, because right there on Fox News: "Shooter is an admitted white nationalist who hates immigrants."

Sure, because it is, after all, really hard to make white supremacists look bad. [Media Matters]

Tucker Carlson, for his part, said that the real thing we all need to fear is not crazy ass white supremacists going on shooting sprees, but those who would seek to prevent crazy ass white supremacists going on shooting sprees by taking away their guns. Of course! He then claimed it was "absurd" for those on the left to suggest that Conservatives like himself were at all to blame for the massacre. You know, even though white supremacists themselves have repeatedly named Carlson and all his scaremongering about diversity as an influence and a force for radicalization. [Daily Beast]

Teenager Cracks Egg On Asshole Australian Senator's Face. Good For Him!

Following the shooting yesterday, conservative Australian Senator Fraser Anning thought it would be a swell idea to go on Twitter and ask "Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?" Which is a lot like saying "Does anyone still dispute the link between women existing and rape?" The shooter's violence was not the fault of Muslims immigrating to Australia, it was the fault of the psychopath who decided to murder a bunch of Muslims.

Anyway, his comments did not go over well. During a press conference, he ended up getting an egg cracked on his face by a 17-year-old boy, whom he promptly punched in the face.

#EggBoy, as he is being called, may have been arrested, but he is also being hailed as a hero across the internet. #WORTHIT [ITV]

Also Worth Your Interest...

As things develop, I may drop a few more things in here! Keep an eye out!

The city of Christchurch, New Zealand, is reeling following a devastating terrorist attack on two mosques that has left 49 people dead. Here’s how you can help the community affected by this mass shooting.

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Racist terrorists killed 49 people at two mosques in New Zealand, targeting worshippers during Friday prayers. The attack appears to have been carried out by a single shooter, a 28-year-old Australian man, who has been charged with murder. New Zealand authorities have arrested four people, although they said one was not involved in the violence. The shooter wrote a manifesto claiming he was acting to save white people from immigration of nonwhites, and that he considered himself "a lawful, uniformed combatant." Authorities said none of the four arrested had been on terror watch lists.

The number of injured is also high; Christchurch health authorities stated 48 patients, "ranging from young children to adults with gunshot wounds," are being treated at Christchurch Hospital alone, and that additional patients with gunshot wounds had been taken to "other health facilities in the community." Injuries ranged from critical to minor. Remember; "wounded" by an assault rifle does not necessarily mean "lucky."

---

The Washington Post reports,

New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said 41 people were killed at Al Noor Mosque on Deans Road, opposite a large downtown park. Seven more were fatally shot about three miles away at a mosque in Linwood, an inner suburb of Christchurch, and another person died at the hospital [...]

Schools and public buildings, as well as the Christchurch Hospital, were on lockdown for hours on Friday afternoon as the police commissioner advised residents of Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island, to stay off the streets.

Bush also asked Muslims in New Zealand to stay away from mosques for the time being:

"I want to ask anyone that was thinking of going to a mosque anywhere in New Zealand today not to go, to close your doors until you hear from us again," he said at a news conference.

Police also disarmed two improvised explosive devices attached underneath a vehicle used by the suspects.

In initial remarks following the attack, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called the attack "one of New Zealand's darkest days"; the country's terrorism threat level was raised to "high" for the first time ever.

Many of those who would have been directly affected by the shooting may be migrants to New Zealand. They may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not. They have no place in New Zealand.

In a later press briefing, Ardern expanded on that condemnation of racism and xenophobia:

We are a proud nation of more than 200 ethnicities, 160 languages. And amongst that diversity we share common values. And the one that we place the currency on right now is our compassion and support for the community of those directly affected by this tragedy.

And secondly, the strongest possible condemnation of the ideology of the people who did this [...] You may have chosen us – we utterly reject and condemn you.

It's not yet clear what weapon(s) the shooter used. The Post notes that New Zealand's firearms laws are stricter than those in the US, but well short of the very harsh restrictions on guns in Australia. Regulation of military-style semiautomatic rifles had been tightened after a 1990 mass shooting. The shooter's manifesto claimed he wanted US authorities to overreact and start seizing guns, sparking a civil war.

This morning, Donald Trump offered his sympathies, complete with the weirdly inappropriate word "warm," which normal humans reserve for happy occasions:

The shooter was apparently thoroughly connected to online hate forums, and just before the massacres, posted a tweet with links to an online manifesto that drew inspiration from previous rants by other racist killers -- the perpetrators of the Charleston church massacre and the 2011 Norwegian bombing and mass shooting at a youth camp. The manifesto, which we'll discuss further in a later post, also included a lot of the "shitposting" sarcasm you'd expect from racist trolls. The shooter livestreamed parts of the massacre on Facebook; a Facebook spokesperson said the company had "quickly removed both the shooter's Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video" after being notified by police, and said Facebook would also remove "any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we're aware." Nonetheless, reports persist that copies of the videos are still showing up on YouTube; we found one in just seconds (no we didn't watch -- we reported it; it had been up an hour).

It's going to be a terrible weekend probably. Look for the helpers. A fund for the victims and survivors has been set up, although the site seems to be overwhelmed at the moment -- which is in itself a hopeful sign, perhaps.

[WaPo / Stuff.nz / NYT / Bellingcat]

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When the kids in Skyler’s school want to tell a friend something in class, they don’t scrawl a note down on a tiny piece of paper and toss it across the room. They use Google Docs.

“We don’t really pass physical notes anymore,” said Skyler, 15, who, like all the other students in this story, is identified by a pseudonym.

As more and more laptops find their way into middle and high schools, educators are using Google Docs to do collaborative exercises and help students follow along with the lesson plan. The students, however, are using it to organize running conversations behind teachers’ backs.

Flirting on google doc chat >>>>>>

— Neta Guey 🤟🏽 (@Crispy_Cruzito) March 1, 2019

Teens told me they use Google Docs to chat just about any time they need to put their phone away but know their friends will be on computers. Sometimes they’ll use the service’s live-chat function, which doesn’t open by default, and which many teachers don’t even know exists. Or they’ll take advantage of the fact that Google allows users to highlight certain phrases or words, then comment on them via a pop-up box on the right side: They’ll clone a teacher’s shared Google document, then chat in the comments, so it appears to the casual viewer that they’re just making notes on the lesson plan. If a teacher approaches to take a closer look, they can click the Resolve button, and the entire thread will disappear.

what the media thinks teens like: sexting
what teens actually like: google docs

— dylan (@dylwack) March 18, 2018

If the project isn’t a collaborative one, kids will just create a shared document where they’ll chat line by line in what looks like a paragraph of text. “People will just make a new page and talk in different fonts so you know who is who,” Skyler said. “I had one really good friend, and we were in different homerooms. So we’d email each other a doc and would just chat about whatever was going on.” At the end of class, they’ll just delete a doc or resolve all the comments. Rarely does anyone save them the way previous generations may have stored away paper notes from friends.

Oh wow tell her to follow me and then chat on google docs

— Hikmah (@3_hikmah) January 16, 2019

Chatting via Google Docs doesn’t just fool teachers; it also tricks parents. When everyone logs on to do homework at night, Google Docs chats come alive. Groups of kids will all collaborate on a document, while their parents believe they’re working on a school project. As a Reddit thread revealed in February, chatting via Google Docs is also a great way to circumvent a parental social-media ban.

if that’s ur man why is he in my google docs chat bar 😴😳🤧😈

— ab (@aturch21) January 3, 2019

Like the paper notes of yore, most Google Docs chat is banal. Kids use it to talk about the day’s happenings at school, plan for prom, gossip, flirt, and bully one another. In a blog post, Bark, an app that parents can use to monitor their child’s phone use, cautioned parents about kids ganging up on other children in Google Docs: “They work in tandem to write mean or hurtful things in a shared Google Doc. In other cases, kids create private, digital ‘burn books’ and invite others to contribute while leaving out the teased child,” the post read. But teens said this type of use is rare. “People just talk shit about teachers, or be like, talking about their days. It will be the most boring stuff, but it’s the only way to get any message across to each other,” Skyler said.

A group of teens I do not know have accidentally invited me to their google doc, where they are ranking their best friends. pic.twitter.com/Gt6LKAmBPq

— Kate Millard Evarts (@kate_evarts) February 22, 2017

Kids in classrooms that don’t use Google Docs turn to whatever collaborative learning software they do have to communicate. The online version of Microsoft Word, for example, has features similar to Google Docs and can be exploited the same way. Nathan, a 16-year-old from the Philadelphia suburbs, told me he and his friends “found out there’s a ‘collaboration space,’ where you can upload documents to share with your class,” in his school’s preferred note-taking software, OneNote. “So we just draw pics with the highlighter tool and upload memes into the shared folder.” Nathan said he and his classmates were excited to discover the group-messaging functionality last year, because “it looks like you’re being productive.” But, he added, “the drawback is that you’re not working on what you’re supposed to be working on, so you don’t get anything done.”

If you don’t flirt with your girl over the chat feature on Google Docs for her paper you’re editing together, somebody else will

— Blake Commanchee (@Jeremy_Wesch) January 22, 2019

While Google Docs chat may be the hottest communication tool for middle and high schoolers, most teenagers abandon it once they get to college. Skye, a 20-year-old from outside Boston, said that thinking about Google Docs chatting made her nostalgic. “Chatting on Google Docs is very reminiscent of when we were younger,” she said. And paper notes? “I haven’t passed a physical note to someone since fifth grade,” she said.

President Donald Trump escalated his denial of global warming Tuesday, when he took to Twitter to quote a noted climate skeptic who claims that climate change is "fake science."

Flyers with Nazi swastikas were posted at a California school just days after a Holocaust survivor shared her firsthand horrors with students who had posted anti-Semitic photographs during a party.

The red carpet for a horror movie screening seems like an appropriate place to get weird, and still so few celebrities capitalize on that perfect opportunity. Yet the always sartorially delightful Lupita Nyong’o once again understands there is a time and a place for everything, including contacts that give the illusion…

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The United States followed nations around the globe in grounding Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets.

The world is a dark and depressing place, rapidly morphing into a terrible hellscape while we hopelessly distract ourselves with dangerous selfie stunts and stupid interactive rom-coms or whatever. But hey: Don't let it get you down. There are still a few good things left out there to help maintain our dwindling faith in the human race. And here, dear reader, is one.

A New Yorker was strolling around a frozen reservoir in Yonkers recently when he noticed that two dogs had fallen through the ice and were struggling in the water—so he ripped off his shirt, sprinted towards the pond, and jumped in and saved them like a goddamn hero, NBC New York reports.

Some bystander managed to capture the rescue on video, and the footage is, obviously, the fucking best. Please, behold, and let the overwhelming joy warm your bleak and hardened heart:

Timothy Yuriev, who saved the dogs, told NBC he was walking his English golden retriever heard their owner shouting for help along Irvington Reservoir, and knew he had to act fast.

"I was looking at [the dogs] and I realized, alright, so—the rescuer, they will come maybe in ten, 15 minutes. The dogs might have hypothermia," he said. So he just stripped down and jumped in, smashing through the ice himself—and Yuriev's golden retriever jumped right in after him.

"I used to live in Siberia," Yuriev said after NBC asked him how he hopped into a goddamn frozen lake like it was no big deal. "My grandfather, a hunter, he taught me how to stand cold, and how to prepare yourself."

According to NBC, Yuriev managed to save both puppers from their frozen fate. Thank you, Yuriev, for your valuable service. The owner appreciates you, the dogs appreciate you, and the world appreciates you for restoring at least some small modicum of our faith in this sad, shitty world. As long as there are good people and good boys out there, all is not truly lost.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told The Washington Post she is "not for impeachment" of President Donald Trump. "He's just not worth it," she said.

There are so many reasons to feel upset when thinking about Mitt “Mittens” Romney, but, for today at least, let’s just zoom in on one specific thing: his absolutely bizarre approach to blowing out birthday candles.

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The ‘Fowl Pole’ is indeed a foul pole.

The lead up to the MLB season is my favorite time of the year, because we get to see the wacky ballpark fare that will grace America for the upcoming year. But nothing could have prepared me for this.

I have serious, serious problems with this. So many that I’m having trouble processing my thoughts — so I’ll list them out, stream of consciousness style.

• There’s no way this is actually a chicken tender.
• So what is this thing? Is it a giant nugget or a bunch of tendies stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster?
• If somehow this is a single tender from a mutant chicken then there is no way frying is going to cook this through.
• But if you par-cook it then it’s probably going to be dry.
• Maybe they boil it first?
• That would take a lot of lobster pots to pre-boil a whole bunch of anaconda-like tenders.
• You know, if they just called this a “giant nugget” or “sausage” I’d be okay with it.
• A giant deep fried sausage would actually be good.
• How are they gonna give you two tiny, crappy ramekins of sauce for a tender that weighs more than a human head?
• This is definitely a meat log.
• A pressed meat log.
• I totally get why they opted to call this a “chicken tender” after thinking of the phrase “pressed meat log.”
• Who am I kidding? I’d eat it.

A New York real estate firm is buying the iconic Chrysler Building for $150 million, a sum that is nearly 81 percent less than what it was purchased for in 2008 due to the unique challenges of operating an aging building. What do you think?

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Natasha Lyonne is the star of Netflix’s Russian Doll, a near-perfect single season TV show that navigates existential dread and self-destruction.

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The writers, director, producers, and publicists behind Captain Marvel have done a lot of work to position their new movie as the story of a superpowered human being. Despite their best efforts, though, the internet understands that, really, everything in the film unrelated to its most notable character, an alien cat…

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Thanks to pediatric vaccination programs, Oregon hadn’t had a case of childhood tetanus in 30 years. That changed in 2017, when an unvaccinated 6-year-old boy spent weeks in the ICU and amassed an $800,000 medical bill after contracting the infection, according to a recent case study by the CDC.

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Larry Luckham was a manager at a Bell Labs data center in Oakland in the late 60s and early 70s. One day, he captured daily life at the company with his camera.

Note how many of his coworkers were women, including women of color. From The Secret History of Women in Coding:

A good programmer was concise and elegant and never wasted a word. They were poets of bits. “It was like working logic puzzles — big, complicated logic puzzles,” Wilkes says. “I still have a very picky, precise mind, to a fault. I notice pictures that are crooked on the wall.”

What sort of person possesses that kind of mentality? Back then, it was assumed to be women. They had already played a foundational role in the prehistory of computing: During World War II, women operated some of the first computational machines used for code-breaking at Bletchley Park in Britain. In the United States, by 1960, according to government statistics, more than one in four programmers were women. At M.I.T.’s Lincoln Labs in the 1960s, where Wilkes worked, she recalls that most of those the government categorized as “career programmers” were female. It wasn’t high-status work — yet.

Tags: Larry Luckham   photography

Duh, of course Captain Marvel is the world’s number one movie. As estimates prophesied, Brie Larson’s solo vehicle appears to have surpassed $150 million domestically, placing it in the orbit of other studio tentpoles, including The Dark Knight and Rogue One. It raked in another $300 million internationally, bringing…

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The Big Ten men’s basketball tournament checks into the United Center this week, and with it come 14 distinct styles.

The players and coaches can decide who has the best teams. We’ll decide who has the best threads.

Because each school wears several uniforms in a season (can you say merchandise...

First Lady Melania Trump mistook Australia’s former foreign minister for the foreign minister’s wife, according to Julie Bishop, the former foreign minister who says it happened to her. Oops!

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SACRAMENTO, CA—Claiming that he had matured and grown into a more refined individual, local 25-year-old Dylan Harkin told reporters Thursday that he was no longer impressed by Mewtwo. “When I was 18, I was still, like, whoa, Mewtwo—but, honestly, there are way stronger Pokémon now,” said Harkin, noting that if you…

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“Now that’s its own American gender nightmare that we don’t have time to get into.”

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Good Omens, Amazon and BBC’s upcoming adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s cult novel, fleshed out its central relationship—the odd couple of angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley—with its first teaser. The latest glimpse at the apocalyptic comedy broadens its lens, introducing us not only to the Antichrist,…

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