IKEA Monkey

Kraft Heinz aims to gussy up your microwave scrambled eggs in a convenient manner with the launch of "Just Crack an Egg."

The microwavable cups includes a combination of diced vegetables, Oscar Mayer breakfast meat, Kraft shredded cheese, and Ore-Ida potatoes that you simply crack an egg into, stir, and microwave.

There are four varieties for the new line at launch:

- Denver - Ham, mild cheddar cheese, onions, green peppers and diced potatoes.

- All American - Uncured bacon, sharp cheddar cheese, and diced potatoes.

- Ultimate - Sausage, mild cheddar cheese, onions, green and red peppers, and diced potatoes.

- Rustic - Turkey Sausage, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, onions, red peppers, and diced potatoes.

The idea here is you can quickly fix yourself breakfast with very little prep or time and with minimal clean-up.

You can find Just Crack an Egg in the egg section of grocery stores nationwide for a suggested price of $2.49 per cup.

Photo via Kraft Heinz.

“The shelter pets absolutely love their chairs!” the organization, a no-kill shelter, wrote on Facebook. “They love their chairs,” Erin Buckmaster, the society’s volunteer executive director told the “Today” show. “We never dreamed it would take off like this,” Buckmaster said.

LIBERTY HILL, TX—Making the call five and a half days into her normal cycle, local woman Erica Lauzon, 26, reportedly decided Monday that her period was over. “Yep, that’ll do it. I haven’t really checked, but it feels like we’re about done here,” said Lauzon, who took the lone tampon out of her purse and put it back in the box, figuring she wouldn’t need it. “It had its chance. I need to move on and resume business as usual.” At press time, Lauzon realized she had made a massive mistake.

Daniel Day-Lewis’ work as an actor, though limited to a relatively small number of films, is worthy of examination. His ability to transform himself and embody the emotions of his characters is unparalleled. His commitment to the method acting technique makes him a bit of an anomaly in the current Hollywood landscape.…

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As Amazon Echo Dot owner Gavin Hightower was heading to bed the other week, he encountered a disturbing Alexa bug. For no apparent reason, the device uttered a “very loud and creepy laugh.”

Like this photograph of a 2-year-old girl called Parker gazing awestruck at artist Amy Sherald’s portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama. Ben Hines, 37, from North Carolina, captured the inspiring moment while visiting the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “It was so touching and uplifting for me to see this beautiful child looking at a beautiful portrait of a powerful woman,” Hines told BuzzFeed.

When Moonlight pulled a big upset and won the Best Picture Oscar a year ago, it felt like a monumental occasion—and not just because of the snafu that resulted in a different film briefly enjoying the honor. Yes, the Academy bestowed best-movie-of-the-year status on an actual, legitimate contender for the best movie…

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Dear baby Jesus, here we fucking go again:

Whiiiiiiine! I’m Donald Trump! There’s ketchup from this morning’s third Big Mac on my nipple because I ate it in the nude! I’m bitching about my attorney general on Twitter during Executive Time because I’m dumber than a kindergartner when it comes to understanding how American government works! I’m mad my attorney general won’t do my bidding and investigate my political opponents for the crime of investigating me! Whiiiiiiiiine!

(Meanwhile, in Robert Mueller’s office: “Copy that tweet and put it in the obstruction of justice file, please.”)

So what’s this all about? Well! The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday afternoon that Attorney General Jefferson Butterscotch Sessions would instruct the Justice Department’s inspector general to take a look-see at whether or not the government did a Good Thing when it got a FISA warrant on literal actual dumbest Russian intelligence asset ever Carter Page (as Democrats and patriots believe), or whether that was very bad (as Republicans and Russians believe). Now, you might be thinking, “Why theeeeeeee fuuuuuuuuck is the DOJ going to do Trump’s dirty work like that?” And we agree! To a point!

But! If somebody is going to take a look and make sure the DOJ/FBI acted appropriately, the IG is the one to do it. We’ve had the same person running the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General since 2012, his name is Michael Horowitz, and he has been at DOJ off and on for years, serving under several presidents. (This is where Trump losing it over him being “an Obama guy” is so ridiculous. Horowitz is sworn to uphold the Constitution, and has not pledged his undying love and devotion to the sad nutsack of Donald Trump, therefore he is DEEEEEEP STATE!)

Look at Sessions’s phrasing:

“We believe the Department of Justice must adhere to the highest standards in the FISA court, and yes it will be investigated, and I think that’s just the appropriate thing,” Mr. Sessions said. “The inspector general will take that as one of the matters he’ll deal with.”

Basically, Sessions is saying, “Jesus Christ pluckin’ a banjo at a Sessions Family Squirrel Eatin’ Contest! Sure, YOU BET, we will take a look at the dumb shit in Devin Nunes’s memo, through the appropriate channels, and then we can all go to a whites-only hootenanny and smoke cigarettes, but not marijuana cigarettes, those are of the Devil. That work for you, President Shit Talker?”

Sessions has been doing everything he can to try to thread the needle between being Donald Trump’s good little boy and also sorta kinda running the Justice Department like the independent organization it’s supposed to be. (Regarding this, anyway.) This has been going on since last summer when Trump almost fired Sessions multiple times for recusing himself in the Russia investigation, then proceeded to berate Sessions and make him cry for months, in person and on Twitter. Sure, Sessions has been making noise about telling investigators to open up new not-quite-investigations into Hillary Clinton, even going so far as to say it’s time we took a look at whether Hillary Clinton emailed all of America’s Uraniums to Russia, because it’s not like that matter was settled fucking years ago or anything. Of course at the same time, his DOJ actually officially admitted Hillary Clinton is innocent of all Uranium Crimes back in December. Also, when Ohio Fucking Moron Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio demanded to know in November if Sessions would appoint a second prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, his response, in Congressional testimony, was the folksiest “eat me” we have ever heard.

So Sessions has been in a kind of impossible position, trying to be the American attorney general in the administration of an un-American president. Hell, we’ve almost felt sorry for him. Almost. You know, like if he wasn’t such a pig turd racist who wanted to Make America 1950 Again.

But this time, Sessions is THROUGH. It took fewer than 24 hours for Attorney General Cletus to respond this time around, and look at what he said:

“We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this Department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary,” Mr. Sessions said in his statement. “As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”

In other words? JEFFERSON BUTTERBEANS MCGILLICUDDY is the attorney general, not Donald Trump, and PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE BISCUITS, MAMA, Jeff Sessions will do his job the way it’s supposed to be done! (That is how Jeff Sessions says “Stay in your lane, motherfucker!”)

The Wall Street Journal adds that people close to Sessions say this morning’s tweet from Donald The Dipshit “crossed a line because Mr. Trump wasn’t personally bashing the attorney general or making generic complaints about the attorney general not investigating a political rival.” WSJ goes on:

In Mr. Sessions’s view, the president was asking him to take concrete investigative steps and not follow standard procedure, which would be a referral to the inspector general.

In other words, Jeff Sessions has finally grown half a pair of hickory nuts in his britches! Good on ‘im!

We will update this post when Donald Trump fires Sessions, which may be in five minutes so, you know, stick around.

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE. And if you love this article, tweet it and share it on the Facebooks!

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[Wall Street Journal / ibid.]

There is terrible sadness to report, and is is that Alex Jones is very upset, and alleged goat-fucker Erick Erickson is very upset, because they are being bullied by Florida school shooting survivor David Hogg. Kids these days, right? Hogg is personally giving Alex Jones swirlies after gym class, and he’s not gonna take it anymore! Erick Erickson will probably take it some more, because he kinda likes it, allegedly.

First, we have Alex Jones, who is being free speech murdered by YouTube and CNN. The basic gist is that YouTube has a three strikes you’re out policy on Alex Jones-type videos where Alex Jones types lie and scaremonger and profit off mass shooting survivors and spread hoaxes saying they are actors and whatnot. Jones got a strike for a video claiming Hogg is a “crisis actor,” so then CNN was like “Oh hey, YouTube, we found two more. One plus two equals three strikes, riiiiiiight?” The threat of being banned forever from YouTube, for Alex Jones, is worse than all the False Flag mass shootings in history, because it drives a stake through HIS HAIRY ANIMAL NIPPLES and right into his heart.

So Jones reached out to Hogg on Tweeter, to beg Hogg to stop using Deep State apparatus organs “CNN” and “YouTube” to hurt his feelings:

Jones never called Hogg any disparaging names besides “crisis actor,” which suggests this child did not in fact just endure a mass shooting at his school. But other than that! Jones did not call David Hogg a “gaywad” or “Little Alex No-Pubes” or any other mean schoolyard names. Of course, “shit journalist” is being too kind to Jones and “snake oil salesman” is just true.

The begging continued:

Heavens to Betsy. (To be clear, Sandy Hook families threatened legal action over NBC’s airing of a Megyn Kelly interview with Jones, but Jones was not sued by them. He was, however, sued by both pizza and yogurt, to whom he folded like a very hairy taco.)

The begging continued:

Alex Jones Challenges @DavidHogg111 to a Debate pic.twitter.com/8Rob0dOmmt

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) February 27, 2018

That is a video of Alex Jones begging David Hogg to come on his show, and Alex Jones whining that David Hogg has stopped replying to him on Twitter. To those who wish we would transcribe it, we can only say “eat me.”

Jones recapped all this on his show today, and also cried about David Hogg calling him a “fat and ugly person.” Awwwwwwwwwwww, that is SLANDER, David Hogg! Alex Jones is clearly svelte like figure skater and an erotically appealing beauty at that!

It would seem Alex Jones is at an impasse, and is now being bullied by the deafening roar of David Hogg’s silence. In a way it hurts more than getting wedgies after school, because at least in that scenario Alex Jones EXISTS.

Hogg hasn’t gone completely silent, of course:

Shall we move on to Erick Erickson? (Must we?)

Ugh, we guess. Here, Erick Erickson, un-hump that goat and write us some words:

David Hogg is a bully.

AND THEN DAVID HOGG POURED PIG BLOOD ON ERICK ERICKSON’S HAIR AT PROM!

First, he slandered Dana Loesch on television without challenge. He accused her of a litany of terribles and a failure to support victims. He turns the NRA into murderers.

NO, Erick Erickson, it was Cameron Kasky who called Dana Loesch a vampire! (No for real he did, and it was great.) But Hogg probably was mean to Dana Loesch, too, and we bet it was awesome.

AND NOW DANA LOESCH IS TOO SAD TO EVER GO TO HIGH SCHOOL AGAIN!

Again and again, his attacks are slanderous and without merit. He has a PR crafted Wikipedia page, he gets PR bookings on the news shows, and at some point someone should probably get the kid a grief counsellor instead of a TV gig. Regardless, what we are seeing is that no, high school kids are not people we should take seriously on any subject. If he cannot hold all the people who screwed up accountable because of his agenda and he accuses anyone who disagrees with him of hatred, he is not someone any of us should pay attention to.

DAVID HOGG TOLD ERICK ERICKSON “FETCH” IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN, AND BY “FETCH” HE MEANT “FUCKING GOATS”!

Cool story, bro.

Now get back up on that goat, Erickson, it ain’t gonna hump itself.

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE. And if you love this article, tweet it and share it on the Facebooks!

Wonkette salaries and servers are fully paid for by YOU! Please pay our salaries, so we NEVER DIE.

GOOD TACKLING DOG!

This Los Angeles police dog has some of the best tackling form you’ll see, and in a pressure situation no less.

A police pursuit following a car jacking left a suspect running after crashing his stolen car. There’s one thing he didn’t expect: A very good dog with the tenacity of a cornerback making a touchdown-saving tackle.

If this dog was at the combine, we’d marvel at its ability. Honestly, that’s a really solid broad jump, quickness, explosiveness, and solid pad level. Also I’d like to say the dog has zero character concerns, but it’ll take an in-depth interview with coworkers to determine if the dog has ever pooped on a rug or something.

The pup’s football ability wasn’t lost on Twitter.

Give this dog all the treats.

Hello, and welcome back to What’s Cooking?, the open thread where you get to share your brilliant thoughts, advice, recipes, and opinions on all things food-related. This week I want to know how you feed yourself when you’re sick, hungover, or just have a general feeling of malaise.

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PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — The Latest on the aftermath of the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida (all times local):

In December, a team of U.S. government scientists released a “report card” on the Arctic. Their top conclusion was pithy, comprehensive, and bleak. The Arctic, they said, “shows no sign of returning to [the] reliably frozen region of recent past decades.”

Now, it’s almost like the environment is trying to prove them right.

Though the sun hasn’t shone on the central Arctic for more than four months, the region is currently gripped by historic, record-breaking warmth. On Sunday, the temperature at the North Pole rose to about the melting point, and parts of the Arctic were more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal.

A handful of Arctic scientists spent the weekend on Twitter, trying to put the episode into context:

Wow... truly a remarkable event ongoing right now in the #Arctic.

Current temperatures well above previous years in February (>80°N latitude)! Average temperature is the bright blue line (https://t.co/kO5ufUWrKq). pic.twitter.com/BuseG4hQPE

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) February 23, 2018

To understand how strange the recent Arctic weather is, it’s worth looking at a place called Cape Morris Jesup.

Cape Morris Jesup is a barren and uninhabited promontory above the Arctic Ocean. Just 450 miles from the North Pole, it is Greenland’s northernmost point. (In fittingly weird fashion, it’s named after Morris Ketchum Jesup, a terrifically mustachioed American banker who helped found the YMCA and the American Museum of Natural History, and helped fund the Arctic expeditions of Robert Peary.)

The sun hasn’t shone on Cape Morris Jesup since October 11. These should be among the coldest weeks of the year for the cape. But over the weekend, the weather station there recorded an air temperature of 43 degrees Fahrenheit, more than 50 degrees above normal for this time of year.

The weird warmth was not limited to that one spot. Station Nord, a scientific research station in Greenland nearly 200 miles to the southeast, recorded temperatures of about 36.5 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend.

These kinds of on-the-ground observations aren’t available for the North Pole. But by combing satellite observations and other temperature data, the top U.S. forecast model estimated that temperatures at the North Pole rose as high as 35 degrees Fahrenheit, according to The Washington Post.

This isn’t the only oddity in the Arctic right now. Every year, the Arctic Ocean goes through a two-part seasonal cycle. From late September to early March, its surface hardens into a huge solid mass, creating a vast ice sheet that stretches from Newfoundland to Siberia. Then, from late March to early September, much of that sea ice melts, and much less of the ocean surface is ice-covered.

At this time of year, sea ice should still be growing and expanding. But recent satellite observations have shown that two large gaps have somehow opened up in the ice. The first is in the Chukchi Sea, near Russia. The second, pictured below, is just north of Cape Morris Jesup in Greenland. The blue gaps are open water:

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Arctic Sea Ice, From February 20 to February 25, 2018

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These two gaps mean that sea-ice formation has stagnated more than a month early. And even before this current warmth, it has been a dismal year for Arctic sea ice. The Arctic Ocean is on track to set a new record this year for the smallest extent of winter sea ice ever recorded. This would be the fourth straight year that the Arctic sets a new wintertime sea-ice record low.

How rare is this kind of Arctic warmth? Climate scientists say they have seen events similar to this one happen before, but that the size and intensity of the warmth made it really notable.

“There are other cases in the reanalysis record with greater than 20 degree Celsius departures” from normal temperatures, said Zachary Labe, a sea-ice researcher at the University of California at Irvine, in an email. “However, it does appear this particular event featured one of the largest departures on record.”

The anomalous Arctic warmth comes just as Western Europe deals with record-breaking cold. A cold front dubbed “the beast from the East” has moved in from Russia to occupy much of Europe. Several inches of snow fell on Rome and London on Monday. And temperatures in Italy are about 30 degrees Fahrenheit below normal.

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Just How Much Hotter (or Colder) Is It Than Usual?

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Are the two events related? Meteorologists say it’s hard to say for now. Many Americans will recognize the underlying pattern of a “polar vortex” that descends unusually far south, chilling the mid-continent while allowing warm air to rush into the Arctic itself, as we’ve experienced it ourselves a handful of times in the past half-decade. In an email, Labe said that the “blocking pattern” caused by cold over Scandinavia “certainly played a significant role for this warm air to intrude into the Arctic.”

But other factors shaped the warmth too. Low Arctic sea ice probably exacerbated the pattern, allowing an already warm region to heat up more. In early February, the temperature of the high atmosphere above the Arctic suddenly spiked—a mysterious process called sudden stratospheric warming—and that probably helped destablize the polar vortex, too.

And along with all those causes, there’s climate change, which is slowly but inexorably raising the planet’s temperature. In fact, the recent Arctic warming illustrates two of the most worrying aspects of global warming.

First: Warming in the Arctic is actually outpacing the rest of the world, according to another recent U.S. government report, due to a little-understood phenomenon called Arctic intensification. In 2016, for instance, worldwide temperatures were about 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. But for much of that year, Arctic temperatures were more than 3.5 degrees above normal.

Second: There are many arbitrary tipping points in Earth’s climate system. The Paris Agreement on climate change, for instance, tries to prevent global temperatures from rising 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That may not sound like a lot. But the difference between 30 and 33.6 degrees Fahrenheit is much more than “just” 3.6 degrees—it’s the difference between a solid chunk of sea ice and an open ocean, between the “reliably frozen region” of the recent past and a daunting, new, half-melted desert.

Well, here we are 17 days after the brutal massacre of 17 students and teachers at a Parkland, Florida high school, which was only the latest in a series of unprovoked mass public killings that have terrorized the United States. By now, you’d think, the president would have formulated a plan of response—a set of legislative and administrative initiatives that he seeks to sell to voters and lawmakers as an effort to make the country less likely to suffer through another tragic and deadly day like Feb. 14.

Sam Zeif had just finished a math test when the shooting started. It was Valentine's Day, and the 17-year-old senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, was looking ahead to a picnic with his girlfriend. At first, some of the kids around him suggested the noise might be some kind of drill, he said—there was chatter that maybe the shots were blanks. Somehow, Zeif knew otherwise, and sheltered in place with his classmates while texting his younger brother, whom he quickly realized was just one floor above him.

Zeif and his brother both got out alive. But the next day—his 18th birthday—Zeif found out his best friend, 17-year-old Joaquin Oliver, was dead.

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Since the mass shooting that killed 17 people made Parkland the latest city to host a uniquely American spectacle of carnage, the nation has watched the teenage survivors take control of the gun control debate. Angry and devastated at the loss of those closest to them—and of their school as an ostensible zone of safety—the teens have been appearing on television, tweeting, organizing rallies, and lobbying legislators. Their message has been buoyed by its simplicity: This can't keep happening. And while these newly seasoned activists know Congress may never be able guarantee unhinged people will not get their hands on deadly weapons, they're confident we can make it a hell of a lot harder than it is now.

It's early, but there's some evidence all of this is having an effect on the public consciousness: A CNN poll released last week found support for stricter gun laws had cracked 70 percent, the highest mark in decades and well above the 52 percent the same survey recorded after the Las Vegas concert massacre in October.

Along with his neighbor Emma González, whose passionate plea for gun control cast her as a breakout star of this new movement, Zeif has been in the thick of it, making the rounds on the cable news circuit. He also appeared at Donald Trump's White House listening session with survivors last week, where he got to tell the president to his face that waffling on gun control, because of fealty to the NRA or for any other reason, is simply unacceptable. I caught up with Zeif over the phone on Friday, as he was catching his breath from the first full week of his new life as a gun control activist. We talked about his transformation from a relatively normal, apolitical kid to powerful national voice on the scourge consuming America—and how he's handling it. Here's what he had to say.

VICE: Do you mind walking me through the moment that day when you realized that something was wrong?
Samuel Zeif: I was watching a show on Netflix. I heard—I thought I heard but I could feel it throughout the building—seven or eight shots. I knew exactly what was going on. There had been rumors the past few weeks before that—we had just had code red training [for] if there was ever a shooter on campus. Thank God we did, because if we didn’t I think the numbers would have been triple.

And then the smoke from the gun set off the fire alarm, and we were told not to go anywhere. So we just stayed put. My teacher kept everyone calm. We kept our phones dark to not let any light through. We had been trained to block off the window to the room, so no one would be able to see in.

Did you know the shooter, or had you heard anything about him?
I had never spoken to him, but I had seen his face and heard stories about him. We had gone to the same schools since I was 12 years old.

A lot of people have been talking about all these warning signs that the shooter was giving off. That failure to respond to warnings is almost a separate issue from gun control, a system failure.
Yes. You know, there’s a whole other page that should have already been in place. I don’t understand how anyone could see this person walking to the [gun] store and not see the damage in that person. You can see damage in people. We always saw damage in that kid. I don’t understand how you can see the damage in that person and sell them a weapon. Let alone an AR-15. Any weapon.

I’m sure you heard about the sheriff announcing the armed deputy on campus was there and stayed outside.
You bet I heard about that. He could have stopped it. He was not supposed to wait for backup. He watched unarmed security guards run in to save lives while he hid behind a wall. [Editor's note: After this conversation took place, it was reported that three additional Broward County Sheriff's deputies remained outside the school while the shooting was ongoing.]

Had you met him before or seen him around?
I’ve seen him. All he really cared about was getting my friends in trouble and kids in trouble for using their e-cigarettes in class. When the time comes to it, he didn’t want to protect us. He just wanted to get us in trouble, and that’s exactly what he did.

You lost your best friend. Can you talk about the moment you realized that and how that’s influenced you?
We were on the same basketball team, so we had a group chat together, and his dad was in the group chat as the coach. When everything happened, I tracked all my friends on Find My Friends. His dad said: "Has anyone heard from Joaquin?" I saw that he was on the other side of the school, so I was relieved. But I guess my service must have been messed up because later I tracked him again, and his phone was in the building. And then we heard on the news the next morning.

Everything I’m doing is for him. People see how much I’ve done, and they said I’m making such an impact. I can’t imagine the impact that he would be making if he still had a voice. I firmly believe that he’s the one making an impact. I don’t think this is me. I think it’s really him with me.

Before this happened, did you think of yourself as an activist or a politically engaged person?
Never. If I see something on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, I will give my opinion about it, but I just assumed I was like everyone else. I still feel like everyone else. I never imagined myself being this involved in politics.

Is gun violence something you heard a lot about locally?
No, I had only heard about it in other places. Parkland is—was—one of the top ten safest communities in the nation. That’s why my friend Joaquin moved here. His parents moved from Venezuela because it’s safer here. Now it just—I don’t feel anywhere is safe.

I think people from outside the state have heard about Florida in terms of stand your ground laws and other aspects of the culture as being very pro-gun. Was that something you were conscious of in your part of the state?
There wasn’t much of a gun culture in my community. My dad owned a handgun a long time ago—20 years ago, before I was even born. He had been planning a little experience for Jacob, my older brother, and me these past few months, and he never really told us what it was until recently. He was going to take us to the gun range. My mom told me about when he took her to the gun range a long time ago. She took one shot and couldn’t do it anymore because she could see what it does to a person. It’s just not right.

You had a chance to go to the White House to talk to the president directly. I watched. I was very moved. I think a lot of people across the country were very moved by that. There was a lot of chatter before that about how choreographed the whole thing was. Do you feel like you were screened in some way, or could you say what you wanted?
I didn’t know it was going to be filmed, let alone live. No, it wasn’t choreographed at all. We said what we wanted to. I didn’t get the chance to meet with my group from Parkland, so we didn’t discuss anything together. I saw some of them with their own written pieces. I had nothing. I wanted it to come from my heart.

Were you nervous? What was it like in the lead-up to asking the questions at the White House?
I was extremely nervous. I had no idea what I was expecting. It was extremely nerve-wracking representing my community and making sure I said the right things when it came down to it.

What did you make of the president's response?
He was sitting there like a little kid with his arms crossed, nodding his head, saying, "I hear you." After some of the conversations started, [with] words like "mental health" and "background checks"—he shouldn’t have to say that because it should already be in place. It should have been in place since Columbine and before. It’s not what I want to hear. I want sensible gun control. I want to feel safe everywhere. He is heading in the right direction with the bump stocks—it’s in the right direction, but it’s not enough. That’s why I’m hoping for more. Everything takes time. I’m hoping we get movement soon.

What do you make of how the president has conducted himself since the shooting generally?
I understand from his point of view as a businessman, not wanting to turn away money. The NRA as an organization is free to attempt to be lobbyists. But his job as the leader of our country to make the right decision based on money or not. He is already one of the most successful people in the world. I don’t understand why he needs more money from them. He could've funded his entire campaign alone. He wanted to save his millions of dollars? I don’t get it. [Editor's note: The NRA spent over $11 million supporting Trump and nearly $20 million opposing Hillary Clinton in 2016.]

You are obviously in favor of gun control. But is it specifically about banning assault weapons? Where do you come down on the possible solutions in play here?
It is about banning assault weapons. I fully respect the Second Amendment. People have the right to a small firearm for self-defense. But in Maryland, they have proved that the Second Amendment does not protect these types of weapons. They banned more than 45 different kinds of assault weapons, including the AR.

There are so many things that we need to do. I don’t think age is the issue. How many times have teenagers thrown a party with alcohol, and they're supposed to have to be 21 to drink? If they want to get it, they’re gonna get it.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the awful lie that survivors of the shooting—or at least some of them—are actors.
I have known Emma González herself since I was six years old. I’ve seen David Hogg in my school every day for years. I don’t understand. I was in California on the same day that he was with my family on vacation. People just want to shut us down because we’re going to shut them down.

I can assure you that they’re not crisis actors. That is one of the most outraging things that I've heard among many.

Is it weird having such a big platform? How would you describe the sensation?
I’m honored to be able to get the word out there. As I said, I would just do it for Joaquin. If I had the option, I would give this back—all this media, all this attention.

What do you think it is that’s making this shooting, hopefully, different from ones in the past?
The Sandy Hook children, God rest their souls, they didn’t have a voice. They were just kids. Their friends were just kids. They didn’t know what to do. I’m sure they’re still traumatized to this day. The Columbine children—that was a different time. As you saw with my text with my brother, it’s very easy to spread words. I think that’s why we are out here, because of how many people can interact with us and see what we’re talking about. The Columbine children didn’t get that chance. It was in '99—they could've rallied, but who was going to see it?

What would you tell other high schoolers about how they can get involved, and what you have learned from doing it? What advice would you have for them?
Keep your voice up. Stay strong. Even if we’re on the other side of the country, we have students and family who know what this is like. We are family now. We’re not going to stop until we feel safe.

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Janelle Monáe has released the first song off her long-awaited follow-up to 2013's The Electric Lady, the forthcoming Dirty Computer. The playful but assured guitar on “Make Me Feel” has a distinct vibe Prince vibe, which Monáe doubles down on with the video’s gender-fluid imagery and overall sensuality. It’s really…

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In a wide-ranging speech to conservatives, the president pushed for to arm some teachers and end gun-free zones in schools.

Umami Issues is The Takeout’s exploration of cooking food with the rich, savory, mysterious taste sensation known as umami. 

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PEACHAM, VT—Telling friends and neighbors to flee for their lives before it was too late, the nation’s beekeepers stated Thursday they were unsure how much longer they could hold back the furious swarms buzzing ominously around their hives. “For generations, we have fought to contain the violent wrath of bees, but they grow stronger each day and will soon overwhelm our defenses,” said area beekeeper Dale Barnard, adding that the bees were very angry, that no amount of smoke wafted in their direction would pacify them, and that there would be no escape from the great, blackening swarms already gathering on the horizon. “It’s only a matter of time. A great reckoning is upon us, and it shall be inscribed in both flesh and honeycomb. May God help us!” After initially stating that death was coming for all, the nation’s beekeepers later clarified that anyone wearing a protective helmet with a mesh veil would of course be okay.

GENEVA—Attending a conference to discuss alarming new data on rising sea levels, a weary group of top climatologists suddenly halted their presentation Friday, let out a long sigh, and stated that the best thing anyone can do at this point is just try to enjoy the next couple decades as much as possible. “You know what, guys? Just go out there and have a good time—don’t worry about any of this,” said climate scientist Annalisa Feldt who tore in half the report she had compiled and suggested everyone consider traveling to a place they’ve never been before, or taking up a pastime they’ve always imagined might be fun. “Go see a show. Join an intramural sports league. Learn a musical instrument. Have more sex. Try skiing, if you never have, although that’s one you’d better do within the next five years or so.” Reiterating the need for people to live it up while they still can, the climatologists announced that if anyone was interested in joining them, they would be skipping the remainder of the conference to get completely shit-faced at the nearest bar.

As I opened the CT scan last week to read the next case, I was baffled. The history simply read “gunshot wound.” I have been a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation for 13 years, and have diagnosed thousands of handgun injuries to the brain, lung, liver, spleen, bowel, and other vital organs. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know about gunshot wounds, but the specific pattern of injury on my computer screen was one that I had seen only once before.

In a typical handgun injury that I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ like the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, grey bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments.

I was looking at a CT scan of one of the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, with extensive bleeding. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?

The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle which delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. There was nothing left to repair, and utterly, devastatingly, nothing that could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.

A year ago, when a gunman opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale airport with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun, hitting 11 people in 90 seconds, I was also on call. It was not until I had diagnosed the third of the six victims who were transported to the trauma center that I realized something out-of-the-ordinary must have happened. The gunshot wounds were the same low velocity handgun injuries as those I diagnose every day; only their rapid succession set them apart. And all six of the victims who arrived at the hospital that day survived.

Routine handgun injuries leave entry and exit wounds and linear tracks through the victim's body that are roughly the size of the bullet. If the bullet does not directly hit something crucial like the heart or the aorta, and they do not bleed to death before being transported to our care at a trauma center, chances are, we can save the victim. The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different; they travel at higher velocity and are far more lethal. The damage they cause is a function of the energy they impart as they pass through the body. A typical AR-15 bullet leaves the barrel traveling almost three times faster than, and imparting more than three times the energy of, a typical 9mm bullet from a handgun. An AR-15 rifle outfitted with a magazine with 50 rounds allows many more lethal bullets to be delivered quickly without reloading.

I have seen a handful of AR-15 injuries in my career. I saw one from a man shot in the back by a SWAT team years ago. The injury along the path of the bullet from an AR-15 is vastly different from a low-velocity handgun injury. The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat travelling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.

With an AR-15, the shooter does not have to be particularly accurate. The victim does not have to be unlucky. If a victim takes a direct hit to the liver from an AR-15, the damage is far graver than that of a simple handgun shot injury. Handgun injuries to the liver are generally survivable unless the bullet hits the main blood supply to the liver. An AR-15 bullet wound to the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding that the patient would likely never make it to a trauma center to receive our care.

One of my ER colleagues was waiting nervously for his own children outside the school. While the shooting was still in progress, the first responders were gathering up victims whenever they could and carrying them outside the building. Even as a physician trained in trauma situations, though, there was nothing he could do at the scene to help to save the victims who had been shot with an AR-15. Most of them died on the spot, with no fighting chance at life.

As a doctor, I feel I have a duty to inform the public of what I have learned as I have observed these wounds and cared for these patients. It’s clear to me that AR-15 or other high-velocity weapons, especially when outfitted with a high-capacity magazine, have no place in a civilian’s gun cabinet. I have friends who own AR-15 rifles; they enjoy shooting them at target practice for sport, and fervently defend their right to own them. But I cannot accept that their right to enjoy their hobby supersedes my right to send my own children to school, to a movie theater, or to a concert and to know that they are safe. Can the answer really be to subject our school children to active shooter drills—to learn to hide under desks, turn off the lights, lock the door and be silent—instead of addressing the root cause of the problem and passing legislation to take AR-15-style weapons out of the hands of civilians?

But in the aftermath of this shooting, in the face of specific questioning, our government leaders did not want to discuss gun control even when asked directly about these issues. Florida Senator Marco Rubio warned not to “jump to conclusions that there’s some law we could have passed that could have prevented it.” A reporter asked House Speaker Paul Ryan about gun control, and he replied, “As you know, mental health is often a big problem underlying these tragedies.” And on Tuesday, Florida’s state legislature voted against considering a ban on AR-15-type rifles, 71 to 36.

If politicians want to back comprehensive mental-health reform, I am all for it. As a medical doctor, I’ve witnessed firsthand the toll that mental-health issues take on families and the individuals themselves who have no access to satisfactory long-term mental-health care. But the president and Congress should not use this issue as an excuse to deliberately overlook the fact that the use of AR-15 rifles is the common denominator in many mass shootings.

A medical professor taught me about the dangers of drawing incorrect conclusions from data with the example of gum chewing, smokers, and lung cancer. He said smokers may be more likely to chew gum to cover bad breath, but that one cannot look at the data and decide that gum chewing causes lung cancer. It is the same type of erroneous logic that focuses on mental health after mass shootings, when banning the sale of semi-automatic rifles would be a far more effective means of preventing them.

Banning the AR-15 should not be a partisan issue. While there may be no consensus on many questions of gun control, there seems to be broad support for removing high-velocity, lethal weaponry and high-capacity magazines from the market, which would drastically reduce the incidence of mass murders. Every constitutionally guaranteed right that we are blessed to enjoy comes with responsibilities. Even our right to free speech is not limitless. Second Amendment gun rights must respect the same boundaries.

The CDC is the appropriate agency to review the potential impact of banning AR-15 style rifles and high-capacity magazines on the incidence of mass shootings. The agency was effectively barred from studying gun violence as a public-health issue in 1996 by a statutory provision known as the Dickey amendment. This provision needs to be repealed so that the CDC can study this issue and make sensible gun-policy recommendations to Congress.

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) of 1994 included language which prohibited semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, and also large-capacity magazines with the ability to hold more than 10 rounds. The ban was allowed to expire after 10 years on September 13, 2004. The mass murders that followed the ban’s lapse make clear that it must be reinstated.

On Wednesday night, Rubio said at a town-hall event hosted by CNN that it is impossible to create effective gun regulations because there are too many “loopholes” and that a “plastic grip” can make the difference between a gun that is legal and illegal. But if we can see the different impacts of high- and low-velocity rounds clinically, then the government can also draw such distinctions.

As a radiologist, I have now seen high velocity AR-15 gunshot wounds firsthand, an experience that most radiologists in our country will never have. I pray that these are the last such wounds I have to see, and that AR-15-style weapons and high-capacity magazines are banned for use by civilians in the United States, once and for all.

On Tuesday, HuffPost reported that Democrat Linda Belcher won her special election for a Kentucky state House seat that had previously been held by a Republican. Belcher’s victory marks the 37th time the Democratic party has flipped a legislative seat since Donald Trump was unfortunately elected President.

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There is very important news we are just learning for the first time in the past 24 hours, and it is that (BREAKING! SPECIAL REPORT!) convicted felon adulterer wingnut “filmmaker” Dinesh D’Souza is, in fact, a vile piece of shit. Try to contain your surprise, OK?

D’Souza D’Tweeted these sentiments about the survivor kids from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, and for whatever reason, they went kind of viral and now tons of people who had never heard of D’Souza before yesterday are now aware he exists, and is a vile piece of shit:

Well, yes, those tweets are awful. They are also par for the course, for a man who has literally made a career off being a racist, lying, attention whoring piece of shit.

Here’s a reaction from one of the Douglas High kids:

Damn, these kids get it. On top of how they don’t want to be murdered by semi-automatic weapons just because Uncle Cletus can’t bear to have his precious penis substitute pried from his cold dead hands, they also seem to understand that Dinesh D’Souza is an adulterer felon trash baby with an IQ that appears to be hovering around 86.

For the record, Dinesh D’Souza is “sorry” you misinterpreted his sage media criticism about how the Democrats are forcing these kids to politicize this completely a-political tragedy that happens every few weeks in America:

And really, he has just as many thoughts ‘n’ prayers as everybody else for the REAL victims, the ones who are crying quietly like they’re supposed to, and aren’t being uppity in front of news cameras:

Fuck you.

What Dinesh D’Souza is actually “sorry” about is that for once, he seems to be suffering the consequences of his own words and deeds (kind of like that time he went to jail LOL), even from some on his own side of the aisle. CPAC, which apparently still exists, responded to calls to cancel D’Souza as a speaker by quietly kicking him off the schedule then lashing out at anybody who pointed out he was a featured speaker in the first place.

Poor Dinesh D’Souza. He was probably so excited to go to CPAC too. We imagine he has a newfound appreciation for every time he’s allowed to leave his house, after all the time he spent in jail, for being a felon. (He’s still on the National Review masthead, so all is not lost.)

Dinesh D’Souza is a man who makes little unwatched slasher films about how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the world’s greatest criminals, while he himself gets convicted for felonies for violating campaign finance laws. Dinesh D’Souza is a man who called Barack Obama “ghetto,” FROM JAIL. Dinesh D’Souza is a man who whined that the Obama administration was “lawless,” FROM JAIL. Dinesh D’Souza thinks The Vagina Monologues somehow contributed to 9/11, and he probably thought about that a lot, IN JAIL. (Indeed, he wrote a whole book about it! Also responsible for 9/11, in D’Souza’s view, are gays and moms who work outside the home.)

Dinesh D’Souza literally, we are not fucking kidding, asked a judge to give him a summer vacation FROM JAIL. But come on, it was only fair to ask, because Dinesh D’Souza for real believes Barack Obama put him in jail to silence him, because of how his little “documentary” movies exposed THE REAL TRUTH. (We still doubt Obama has the foggiest fucking idea who Dinesh D’Souza is.)

Of course, as a convicted felon, Dinesh D’Souza probably shouldn’t be tweeting about gun laws or politics in the first place, since he’s not allowed to vote or buy a gun LOLOLOLOL.

Anyway! Dinesh D’Souza is suddenly persona non grata, even among some of his conservative compatriots. We guess this is another side effect of this latest mass shooting terrorist attack, the one out of the many thousands we’ve had that finally is waking people up and making them pay attention. After an entire sad-ass life spent being A) not very bright and B) a liar and C) completely vile, this is finally the time D’Souza was so gross that (some) people on his own side started to back away slowly.

Whatever.

Hope Dinesh D’Souza has enjoyed his latest 15 minutes of notoriety! Now it’s time to go back to treating him as the worthless filth he is, by ignoring him.

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Who made the call to redact these salaries, at a time when President Trump has been calling for a downsized federal workforce and a greater emphasis on performance?

Wayne LaPierre, the executive director and CEO of the National Rifle Association, said schools need more people with guns to make them safer.

Time and again, Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler have proved to be a winning duo—the actor and director are currently celebrating the runaway success of Black Panther, the third film they’ve made together. There’s no resting on laurels here, though, as Variety reports Coogler and Jordan are teaming up once more on…

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J. R. Sullivan on effort in Iowa to track bat migrations from the air, with an eye toward combatting the spread of white-nose syndrome, which is swiftly wiping out bat populations across the United States.

Ten years ago, investor Warren Buffett made a bet with Ted Seides of the investment firm Protégé Partners about the relative performance of index funds and hedge funds. The bet stated:

Over a ten-year period commencing on January 1, 2008, and ending on December 31, 2017, the S&P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees, costs and expenses.

Buffett has long been critical of money managers, recommending that most people put their money into low-fee index funds instead.

Over the years, I’ve often been asked for investment advice, and in the process of answering I’ve learned a good deal about human behavior. My regular recommendation has been a low-cost S&P 500 index fund. To their credit, my friends who possess only modest means have usually followed my suggestion.

I believe, however, that none of the mega-rich individuals, institutions or pension funds has followed that same advice when I’ve given it to them. Instead, these investors politely thank me for my thoughts and depart to listen to the siren song of a high-fee manager or, in the case of many institutions, to seek out another breed of hyper-helper called a consultant.

In defense of the bet, Seides wrote:

Having the flexibility to invest both long and short, hedge funds do not set out to beat the market. Rather, they seek to generate positive returns over time regardless of the market environment. They think very differently than do traditional “relative-return” investors, whose primary goal is to beat the market, even when that only means losing less than the market when it falls. For hedge funds, success can mean outperforming the market in lean times, while underperforming in the best of times. Through a cycle, nevertheless, top hedge fund managers have surpassed market returns net of all fees, while assuming less risk as well. We believe such results will continue.

So Buffett invested in a Vanguard index fund and Seides picked five hedge funds of funds. On December 31, 2017, the outcome was clear: the S&P 500 had trounced the hedge funds and Buffett won his bet.

Tags: finance   gambling   Ted Seides   Warren Buffett

Look, I’m not saying it was good, just that I’m happy it exists.

Fergie’s cover of the “Star-Spangled Banner” was terrible, and I’m so happy it is in our lives. For some reason, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eighteen, she tried to sing it like a lounge singer in a syrupy 30s bar laying on top of a piano played by the Ring-a-Ding Kid. It might have worked if the crowd had been sensually drunk on Manhattans sitting at two-top tables. It didn’t work in a corporate arena before the NBA All-Star Game, and I’m not sure it could ever really work in any universe where, like, Joel Embiid exists.

Fergie begins the anthem like your friend over-emoting during drunk karaoke. It sounds like she’s doing a Lady Gaga impression when she does that throaty thing where she sort of eats the lyrics at the roof of her mouth. No one has ever pronounced “Perilous” like “Pair-RAH-luss” before, I don’t think, and Fergie throws everything she has behind that second syllable to knock us all on our asses with a minute-and-a-half still to go in the song.

This is all according to plan, by the way. We’ve seen terrible anthems before where the singer seems to just wing it — Carl Lewis and Roseanne are the obvious ones. Fergie sang the song exactly how she intended, however. We know this, because Deadspin got footage of her rehearsing before the game, in which she hits all the notes and susses out the proper pronunciation of baaaan-ner-wer yea-het way-yyyave.

I cannot defend Fergie’s rendition in a vacuum: It’s bad. But it is a net positive for this world, for two reasons:

1. There were so many good jokes

2. Fergie’s intentions were pure

Look, the “Star-Spangled Banner” was made to be mangled. It’s a bitch to sing, and the long crescendos and fortissimos and pianissimos leave a lot of room for interpretation. There can be no such thing as disrespecting the anthem while singing it when so few people can actually sing it properly. The only way to sing it right is to sing it however you can do it best, and most of the time that’s terribly.

That’s unlike, say, “La Marseillaise,” which is good, and everybody can sing it pretty good, and mostly everyone leaves it alone. “The Star-Spangled Banner” practically taunts everyone who sings it, and anyone who can manage to sing it competently sounds exceptional because it leaves no room for only so-so interpretations.

Fergie’s intention was to make the national anthem feel sexy as hell, following the footsteps of Marvin Gaye’s 1983 All-Star rendition which actually was sexy as hell.

Gaye’s rendition was an understated sexy, however. Fergie tried to move that legacy forward by turning the dial all the way the hell up and seeing what happened. If Gaye’s rendition was a minx-like wink to America, Fergie’s was an all-out, fumbled come-on. Her elbow slipped on the bar, she knocked over our drink, and she probably feels sheepish today.

But she went for it, damn it. And I hope she inspires future generations of seductive anthem singers, because: 1) Every failure along the way will be (earnestly, nobly) hilarious, and 2) Someone’s going to nail it at some point.

Brian Eno once noted that the Velvet Underground’s cacophonous mess of a first album only sold about 30,000 copies in its first five years, but that “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”

Some day, I like to believe, someone will sing a definitive version of the “Star Spangled Banner” that will make us all want to make love to America and each other. When that day comes, we’ll have Fergie Happy Birthday Mr. President-ing the shit out of the national anthem to thank.

The recent federal indictments charging that Russians meddled in U.S. elections since 2014 proves that the Obama administration “failed to act” or at the very least recognize such intelligence, Republicans are saying.