IKEA Monkey

Private citizen Barack Obama garnered a rock star-like reception this week in one of the areas where he is admired most: the liberal bastion of San Francisco.

When The Takeout’s Gwen Ihnat sat down with Chicago chef Stephanie Izard not too long ago, one passage of her interview stuck with me and wouldn’t let go:

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Neatly encapsulating a certain branch of public opinion surrounding the NFL—whose knee-hating commissioner, Roger Goodell, issued a statement yesterday ordering all players to either stand during the national anthem, or stay in the locker room until the song is over—at the moment, Run The Jewels’ El-P revealed on…

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Ronda Rankin was whizzing down a stretch of interstate in Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday night when her daughter noticed something strange about the car next to them. There seemed to be some sort of round, fuzzy blur on the roof of the maroon minivan that was flying down the road at about 60 MPH. When they inched a little closer to the van, there was no mistaking it: The ball of fluff clinging onto the roof for dear life was, without a doubt, a cat.

Side-by-side with the minivan, Rankin waved at it while her husband honked. "There's a cat on your roof!" Rankin mouthed, pointing up at it. "A cat on your roof!"

The minivan slowed down, veered off to the side of the highway, and disappeared behind them, taking the uncertain fate of the daredevil feline with it.

But on Thursday, ABC affiliate KET7 managed to track down the cat's owners, and discovered that—miraculously—the cat, aptly named Rebel, was still alive. And he hadn't even gotten injured. Michelle Criger, the Rebel's owner, told KET7 she had no idea that he had been surfing on top of their van. Apparently the cat likes to hang out around the car, and Criger knows to look under the van and inside of it before she drives anywhere. But she didn't think to check on top of it—until the Rankins flagged her down.

"When I got him off the roof of the van, he wasn't scared at all," Criger told KET7. "He wasn't shaking, heart racing, nothing. We were more scared than him."

And so Rebel the cat lives on, presumably, as his name suggests, gearing up for his next death-defying feat of bravery. Maybe he'll graduate from hitchhiking and move on to scaling very tall telephone poles, or perhaps, feeling bit by the travel bug, he'll try to make his next getaway via plane. And why not? He's still got eight lives left.

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Fulfilling the dreams of upper-tier Star Wars dorks everywhere (plus, presumably, nerdcore rapper MC Chris), THR reports today that Logan’s James Mangold has signed on to direct a standalone Star Wars story focused on bounty hunter Boba Fett.

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Here's the thing with pranks: They're almost always mean. More often than not, they're just vehicles to laugh at someone else's expense, to terrify your neighborhood or feed toothpaste Oreos to unsuspecting victims or whatever. So when the rare prank comes along that doesn't hinge on hurting someone else, said prankster should be applauded for doing a funny without fucking up another person's day, right? Take, for example, the high school seniors who recently staged that brilliant fake car crash at their school—everyone from the principal to the cops gave them props for that one. But unfortunately, not everyone can take a joke.

Presumably inspired by that viral prank story, Missouri high school student Kylan Scheele hatched a plan to pull a seemingly innocuous and "laid back" prank to cap off his senior year: by putting his high school up for sale on Craigslist for the low, low price of $12,725. "Huge 20+ room facility," Scheele's prank post read, praising the school's "newly built football field," "huge parking lot," and close proximity to Walmart "for convenience."

Scheele's school administrators were significantly less chill than he expected, though, and he's been suspended and banned from walking at graduation—all because of the post, FOX 4 reports.

"I decided to say the reason we’re selling this is because of 'the loss of students,' because the senior class is graduating,” Scheele told FOX 4. The school, though, read the line as a potential threat and reported it to the cops. "They tried to relate it back to all the recent school shootings and everything," he continued, "but I don’t see how it was a threat at all."

The local police investigated and concluded that Scheele wasn't a potential problem, though they asked him to delete the post for good measure, which he did. But even then, the school refused to walk back on the graduation ban.

"Out of an abundance of caution, administrators and police investigated and determined there was not a credible threat," the Independence School District wrote in a statement. "A student who makes a real or implied threat, whether it is deemed credible or not, will face discipline."

"A three-day suspension, sure, but denying me the ability to walk? That’s a lifetime moment," Scheele told FOX 4. "I think they’re overreacting."

Now, there's an online petition with more than a thousand signatures asking the school to reconsider the punishment. As of now, though, it doesn't look like Scheele's going to get his cap and gown experience. If nothing else, at least the 18-year-old can feel great pride in his ability to craft the rare prank that doesn't hurt anyone, save for a few cautious school administrators.

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It’s hard to define the concept of perfection. Philosophers have debated the meaning of perfection for centuries, wondering aloud whether it can ever truly be achieved. But we here at Gizmodo believe that we have finally found it. This video, posted to Twitter on May 19, 2018 A.D., is perfect.

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Even though it was arguably a better match for the visual tone of the film’s trailer, it’s unlikely we’re going to hear the song “I’m Han Solo” pop up anywhere in Solo: A Star Wars Story. That’s mainly because it’s notoriously terrible. The infamous track—a parody of Jason Derulo’s “Ridin’ Solo” with ham-fisted Star…

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Asked by one of his Fox & Friends for his thoughts on the NFL’s new anthem policy, Donald Trump sounded satisfied on Wednesday with the outcome of his long-running quest to stop black athletes from protesting peacefully on the field before games. And then, for good measure, the president of the United States suggested that maybe, just maybe, those same athletes “shouldn’t be in the country” at all.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees telecommunications like radio, TV, and the internet in the U.S., doesn’t regulate content on online platforms like YouTube. But that hasn’t stopped people from sending complaints about the video site to the federal agency—and they’re every bit as unhinged as…

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It was going to be the first meeting between an American president and a North Korean leader in history—an audacious effort to resolve the crisis over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. But on Thursday—after days of bitter back-and-forth between the United States and North Korea over how to approach denuclearization, with a North Korean official threatening a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown” with the U.S. even as the North Korean government destroyed a nuclear test site as a show of good faith—the White House abruptly announced that the June 12 summit in Singapore would not take place.

The news came in a letter from Donald Trump to Kim Jong Un, the full text of which is here:

Dear Mr. Chairman:

We greatly appreciate your time, patience, and effort with respect to our recent negotiations and discussions relative to a summit long sought by both parties, which was scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore. We were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is totally irrelevant. I was very much looking forward to being there with you. Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place. You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.

I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me, and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters. Some day, I look very much forward to meeting you. In the meantime, I want to thank you for the release of the hostages who are now home with their families. That was a beautiful gesture and was very much appreciated.

If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write. The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth. This missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history.

Sincerely yours,

Donald J. Trump

President of the United States of America

For exclusive videos, pictures, and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Send us your confidential tips at tips@deadspin.com, call our confidential tips hotline at (347) 746-8471, contact our writers directly, or use our anonymous SecureDrop system.

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And by her hair.

The fate of President Donald Trump's summit with Kim Jong Un remains uncertain after a series of provocative statements from North Korea. But even if history isn't made, a commemorative coin created by members of a White House military unit forever memorializes what could have been.

She is a delight and this is bonkers.

In what's been characterized as the most progressive remarks ever uttered by a

Ariana Grande paid tribute to the city of Manchester on Tuesday to mark the one-year anniversary of the terror attack that killed 22 people attending her concert.

President Trump said Kim Jong Un changed his mind about the US-North Korea June summit after chatting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

A man getting ready wasn't expecting to have "corn snakes" for breakfast Saturday morning — but that's exactly what he got as a 3-foot snake slithered out of his cereal box and into his dishwasher.

It’s been less than a week since 10 students were killed and another 13 were injured by a 17-year-old gunman in a mass shooting at Santa Fe High School, near Houston, Texas, and state officials are scrambling to avoid saying literally anything meaningful about gun control.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Do you ever just sit and think about everything going on right now? It's chaos out there.

At the time of writing this, a volcano in Hawaii threw a huge cloud of ash two miles into the sky. Remember that Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared four years ago? Experts now think all the passengers were murdered by the pilot, who messed with the air pressure and made them all unconscious. Ten people were killed in yet another US school shooting last week.

You get the idea. The news makes us think that major things are happening all the time. I assumed this independently too because on a planet as big as the one we're on, how can they not be?

And then I rediscovered Insecam.

Insecam is an online directory of unsecured security cameras, currently purporting to display around 73,000 live-streams from around the world. It’s existed for a while—Motherboard wrote about it in 2014—but nobody has really delved into it since. This confuses me because in many ways, it is the only glimpse we have of what is happening everywhere, in real time. We can scroll through social media feeds until our wrists are sore, collect as much statistical data as we like, pivot our way through Google Earth, but none of this gives us the same insights as being able to visually observe the present from so many angles.

Churches, restaurants, farms, streets, bars, private gardens, beaches, barber shops—they’re all there, streaming 24 hours a day within neatly organized categories such as "farm" and "traffic" and "interesting." Because the owners of these security cameras probably don't know this footage is being streamed online, you're basically an invisible observer. If that sounds creepy and unethical, welcome to 2018—someone is probably watching you reading this.

Anyway: Those who know me well know that I have an incredibly obsessive personality. I once took so many vitamin supplements that my limbs went numb for six months. I’m the kind of person who cannot have a hobby unless that hobby becomes my entire personality for an unspecified duration of time. Context given, you'll understand why—for a week or so, recently—Insecam became my life.

I would view Insecam first thing in the morning, check in when I should have been doing other stuff at work, scroll through Insecam on the bus home, angling my phone screen so the other passengers wouldn’t notice that I was staring blank-faced at live footage of a potato factory in Bolton. For something that shows all the bits of the real life we intentionally leave off our social media because it’s so boring, Insecam is very easy to get sucked into. Oh, I’ll just peep at what’s happening in this Taiwanese hairdressers then I’ll stop, I’d tell myself, before getting lost in there for another few hours, spying on empty backstreets, Bible-belt churches, and Israeli bakeries.

After watching 24-hour surveillance footage from around the world almost constantly for one week, my main takeaway is this: nothing is happening, most of the time. I'm serious. We think of the world as this screaming, disastrous thing—a nonstop miasma of events and movement. Whereas, actually, when our backs are turned, when we are asleep or elsewhere, what sits behind and around us are endless empty spaces and motionless objects.

What I found most interesting about live streaming weren't the fights or affairs or accidents that you'd expect, but the sheer nothingness that permeates every single corner of the earth. When you leave to go to work, for example, your bedroom just sits there being empty and all your belongings remain still. Now imagine that on a global scale. Laundromats go silent, and roads exist without cars for hours at a time. Oceans are still carrying on at 5 AM, when the sky is black. It's astonishing.

Another revelation that came from this experience is that humans are not the center of the universe. We think we are because that’s how we’ve evolved, but we’re not even close to filling the whole world up. There are flamingos taking solitary dips in lakes and cows going to sleep and horses staring into space without interruption. And when humans are around—and there are lots of us, scurrying around like ants, chatting on phones in parking lots, furiously driving through the rain —it rarely looks like we’re doing anything interesting.

In fact, when I did see people on Insecam, they were usually working. It was weird to observe capitalism unfold on such a large scale: I watched hordes of people sewing garments, typing away in offices, and packaging supplies to be sold. If you're wondering what most people are doing right now, if they’re awake they’re probably getting ready to work, at work, or coming home from work. If these Insecam streams are anything to go by, leisure is fleeting.

It's worth mentioning here that a site like Insecam—for all of its appeal—is also inherently not good. There’s something disturbing about being able to view a person without their consent, regardless of whether it’s loosely legal or happening to all of us.

The creator, an anonymous admin who appears to be hosting the service in Russia, explained that the site "has been designed in order to show the importance of the security settings. To remove your public camera from this site and make it private the only thing you need to do is to change your camera password." In other words, some nerd has set it up just because they can. And there are probably people using it for questionable purposes, and almost certainly those finding stuff to masturbate over. One scroll through Reddit, for instance, will show users saying things like, "I found a nice girl in Colombia." This is absolutely not even slightly OK.

But in a world where we define ourselves by what we do, and consider our environments in terms of all the things happening within them, Insecam is like a portal into what’s really going on—which is "not much." For me, its appeal doesn’t lie in voyeurism, as such, but in how it allows you to experience a sort of solitude, a specific type of observation, which isn't possible when you’re physically present within those environments. As a friend of mine put it, “If you’re physically inside the space you ruin it by being there. It wouldn’t be an empty space in the same way. But this is what it feels like to somehow experience totally empty space. You're like a ghost."

There’s also something engrossing about knowing what’s going on at weird times of the night or in secluded areas. Scrolling through Insecam gives me the same curious, almost ASMR-like feeling as riding in an Uber between those dead hours of 3 AM and 5 AM, looking out the window, seeing a locked park and thinking, 'What is going on in there?' Insecam answers some of those questions; it quenches some of those curiosities and provides at least some relief when it comes to the mysteries of the human condition.

Or maybe I’m just romanticizing a bunch of extremely creepy, boring webcams and I should just, like, look out a window or something.

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Last week brought terrible news to Japanese whiskey fans: Suntory plans on halting sales of the wildly popular, and fairly affordable, Hakushu 12-year-old single malt and the Hibiki 17-year-old blend. But fear not oh, drinker of smooth spirits, there are other great options out there. These whiskeys may not be the…

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Nicki Minaj’s ability to deliver an ego-shattering diss is well documented in her music. And for her appearance as the musical guest on this week’s season 43 closer, Saturday Night Live put Nicki’s shit-talking prowess to use in a sketch that, although it was cut for time, is frankly more entertaining than a lot of…

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President Donald Trump is having a busy, rage-filled Sunday. Mere hours after he sent a six-part tweetstorm that blasted everything from the New York Times to the Mueller probe, to Hillary Clinton’s emails, the commander in chief was back at it again a few hours later.

The world’s two biggest economies are standing down. For now. The United States is officially dropping its headline-grabbing threats of imposing huge tariffs on Chinese products as it focuses on the ongoing negotiations regarding how to best close the trade deficit with China. “We’re putting the trade war on hold,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday.

Like many people who work in an office, we here at Onion Inc. use Slack frequently, for everything from “where in the hell is that article?” (using nicer language), to vote on what we should get for lunch for the weekly staff meeting. (Also, to track cute dog Instagrams and various Mueller investigation updates.)…

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SANTA FE, TX—In the hours following a violent rampage in Texas in which a lone attacker killed eight individuals and seriously injured several others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Friday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Ohio resident Erica Webb, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

Wario is a libertarian. Bowser is a fascist. We know this about them, in our hearts, but no one has ever sat down and categorized the political leanings of the Mushroom Kingdom’s best-known residents.

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Prince Harry Shows Guest To Air Mattress In Corner Of Windsor Castle

WINDSOR, ENGLAND—Ensuring his college friend had a comfortable place to crash while in town for the upcoming wedding, Prince Harry led guest Arnold Hayweather to an air mattress in an unused side room at Windsor Castle. “Ah, here we are. I inflated the old boy pretty good, so feel free to let some air out if it’s too firm, but keep in mind it’ll probably deflate a bit overnight,” the soon-to-be-wed Prince told his guest, handing him a single faded towel and adding that the closest bathroom could be found in the stables nearest the George IV gateway on the far side of the 13-acre estate grounds. “I’ll give your name to the Queen’s Guards, they shouldn’t bother you in the least. There’s no password on the WiFi, and, oh, yes—if you wouldn’t mind just tucking your suitcase and stuff against the wall during the daytime? The tours come through to see this portrait of the Earl of Shaftesbury. Thanks awfully for coming. We’re so glad you could make it.” Harry later sent a courier with a note to inform Hayweather that if he found his current spot got too much sunlight, he should feel free to move the mattress to the crypt beneath St. George’s Chapel.

A member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology evinced skepticism about climate change during an exchange with a witness about rising sea levels.