It's hard to do a great photo shoot with a baby becacuse they will inevitably start crying or have an accident. That's why this Harry Potter photo shoot is so brilliant -its actually better if the baby cries. After all, have you ever seen a smiling mandrake? Of course, it doesn't hurt if the baby's big brother is there to look annoyed at having to wear ear muffs just to transplant a bothersome screaming plant.
So declared Peter Bazalgette, name-checking his great, great grandfather Joseph who rebuilt London's sewer system. The bewhiskered Victorian looked on in bust form, at this week's reopening of his great 'cathedral of sewage', Crossness Pumping Station near Thamesmead. There's never been a better time to visit.
It doesn't exactly resemble a cathedral, but Crossness Pumping Station certainly has a grandeur. The central chamber is a riot of columns, arches and multicoloured ironwork. Proponents of the 'form follows function' school of architecture would cack themselves here. The form is that of a gilded fun palace; the function is to pump feculent water up from Bazalgette's sewer system and into the Thames. The Victorians took great pride in their engineering, even their sewer engineering.
Crossness opened in 1865 — a great pumphouse to cleanse south London. Its magnificent Italianette tower was a local landmark, visible for miles around in the flat marshlands of what was then Kent, and is now the London Borough of Bexley. The tower was demolished in the 1950s, when the pumping station was decommissioned.
The building fell into disrepair, and might easily have been lost were it not for an army of volunteers who have slowly brought the remaining structures back from the brink. The unforgettable highlights are the four giant beam engines that still lie within — among the largest in the world. These were a wonder of the age. Indeed, the engines are named after members of the royal family, a quartet of enormous shit-shovellers called Victoria, Albert Edward, Prince Consort and Alexandra.
Prince Consort in action.
Thanks to the work of the volunteers, Prince Consort is once again under steam. Visitors can see the massive engine see-sawing up and down as Bazalgette intended. It's also possible to see the engines working from below, or climb up and watch from above.
One of the disused engines from above.
Crossness has also benefitted from a £2.8 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant, along with further cash from English Heritage and other sources. The money helped with the restoration, as well as contributing to a landscaped garden and the creation of a new museum space to make a visit even more rewarding.
The museum is neatly done, with punchy, engaging displays on the history of sewerage, sanitation and public health. A special exhibition marks the 150th anniversary of the last outbreak of cholera — a disease that Bazalgette's sewers helped to eradicate. The museum space culminates in a thought-provoking history of the toilet, including a display of the surprising items people once used to wipe their bottoms. We're still trying to figure out the mussel shells.
Joseph Bazalgette's head features in the building's capitals.
The Crossness Pumping Station beam house and museum are located within Thames Water's Crossness site. On-site parking is provided, or else the buildings can be reached with a 10-minute taxi ride from Abbey Wood station, or a 30-minute walk. The museum also puts on a shuttle bus to Plumstead station on selected weekends. See website for more details and open days.
Lunar Cycles is a massive site-specific installation featuring 15,000 paper-crafted birds in the 13th arrondissement of France’s capital city, requiring (non-paper) cranes to hang the elaborate avian collage.
Created by French street artist Mademoiselle Maurice in collaboration with Mathgoth Gallery, the work represents the biggest mural Paris has ever seen, a massive flight of birds landing on a 20,000-square-foot wall.
The artwork was installed on a condemned building, allowing the artist to first apply a layer of black paint as a backdrop for the colorful array of geometric paper birds added to the wall. She also painted on a series of two-dimensional origamic patterns to bridge between the physical papers and flat surface.
The artist notes that the neighborhood contributed to the design, including those most impacted but the upcoming demolition of this long-standing structural pillar of the community. Previous projects from Maurice have featured similar themes in other settings, from birds and other geometric origami shapes gracing the walls of city streets and ancient castles alike. This work will be up through August.
We're all steamed up at the news. This September a handful of lucky passengers will get to ride a steam train along part of the Metropolitan line.
The nostalgic trips — organised by London Transport Museum — are timetabled for 10 and 11 September, choo-chooing between Amersham, Harrow-on-the-Hill and Wembley Park.
Not only will you get to watch Metro-land roll by from the comfort of a vintage carriage, you'll also be plied with tea, cakes and 1940s tunes.
If you prefer to take the bus, there's a free heritage ride from Amersham station to Amersham Old Town on 11 September. Awaiting you are live bands and performances, market stalls, a children's area and fairgrounds.
Spotted anyone acting strangely on the streets of London this week? Chances are they're playing the big new interactive game Pokemon Go.
What is Pokemon Go?
In Pokemon Go, Pikachu, Charizard, Bulbasaur, Charmeleon, and all the other Pokemon creatures have come to planet earth: and you can catch them using your phone.
Walk around town; your phone will vibrate when a Pokemon is close; and you can try and flick Pokeballs at it (stay with us) to try and 'catch' it.
Some give in easily; others resist capture, and will keep you jabbing at your phone like a loon for a good few minutes, before you maybe give up and actually go on with your commute.
As we said, to catch Pokemon, you need Pokeballs. And to get more Pokeballs, you need to head to Pokestops: local places of interest, like statues, churches, memorials. Which offer little Londony factoids in return for your time.
What a great way to get out and about and see more of London, right?
Where are London's Pokestops?
Pokestops are all over the place.
But cool ones we've spotted include the Savoy Hotel, the Charlie Chaplin statue in Leicester Square; the Winston Churchill in Parliament Square; on Waterloo Bridge; and at the Cenotaph.
What does Pokemon Go look like?
Pokemon Go is all about 'augmented reality': your phone will show you the real world (albeit a slightly garish cartoony version) overlaid with slightly bonkers pictures of the monsters from the Pokemon world.
The game uses your phone's camera, so you get a slightly surreal impression of looking at the world in front of you with a wriggling creature in it only you can see.
— Pokemon Go London (@PokemonGoLondon) July 6, 2016
You're right.
After hugely successful launches in Australia and the US, the UK launch has been paused because Pokemon Go is so popular, it's crashing the servers that make it work.
But as we all know, Londoners aren't very good at waiting for things...
How To Download Pokemon Go in London
If you're desperate to start playing Pokemon Go, here are some cheats. (With some caveats.)
— Pokemon Go London (@PokemonGoLondon) July 7, 2016
On Android, try side-loading: download the game, then physically drag and drop it from a computer to your phone.
(There are issues with this method: most notably reports of downloadable versions being filled with malware).
If you're using an iPhone, the cheat is a little safer, but just as complicated. Sign out of your iTunes Store; change your location to New Zealand and create a new iTunes account, then once it's downloaded, sign out and sign back in with your UK account.
(Bear in mind, your Pokemon Go game is now linked to your New Zealand iTunes account, so if you want to update/download it again, you'll need to sign out, switch accounts, and then sign in.)
Is Pokemon Go a bit addictive?
In a word: yes. Stats suggest it's more popular than Tinder. And is hot on the heels of Twitter. Don't say we didn't warn you.
This redacted pair of letters surfaced two months ago: the first one is a letter from an anonymous law student (or group of students) who wrote to a prof to object to their choice to wear a Black Lives Matter t-shirt in class; the second, a devastating takedown from the prof, is a tiny masterclass in legal thinking, persuasive writing, and the nature and character of a legal education.
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Sulfur, useful as it is, is produced in such vast quantities as a byproduct of energy production that it is of little value. There's so much of it that Canadian oil company Syncrude's storage site is slowly turning into an enormous pyramid of sulfur.
Click the last link to the "cool interactive graphic". please.
This is In Real Terms, a column analyzing the week in economic news. Comments? Criticisms? Ideas for future columns? Email me, or drop a note in the comments.
It’s July, which means that across the country teenagers are flipping burgers, scooping ice cream and mowing lawns to save up money for school clothes, movie tickets and — oh, right — college tuition. But fewer young Americans are working summer jobs than in decades past, and fewer of those jobs are going to the teens who need them most.
The improving job market is gradually beginning to benefit teens, who are often among the first to lose jobs during a recession and the last to find them in a recovery. During the 2008-2009 recession, the share of Americans ages 16 to 19 working during the summer plummeted from 40 percent to less than 30 percent, a steeper drop than for the population at large. But last year, the teen employment rate rose to 32 percent, and with the unemployment rate now below 5 percent, most experts expect even more teens to find jobs this year.
That rebound, however, has barely made a dent in the decades-long decline in teen employment. In the summer of 1995, more than half of teens age 16 to 19 worked in the summer; today, less than a third do. The drop has been especially steep for boys, who are now less likely than girls to work during the summer. Experts attribute the decline to a variety of forces: the disappearance of many entry-level jobs, the rising share of young people spending their summers in school or other educational activities and, at least recently, a rising minimum wage. (Employers may not see teen workers — especially those with less experience or fewer skills — as worth $10 or more per hour.)
Young Americans from low-income families have been especially hard-hit by the decline in summer employment. According to data from the Current Population Survey, teenagers whose families make less than $20,000 per year are now less than half as likely to work as those from families who earn at least $100,000, and, unlike their wealthier peers, low-income teens have seen hardly any rebound in employment since the recession ended. (Black and Hispanic teens, too, have far lower employment rates than whites.)
Teens from less privileged backgrounds face numerous barriers to finding jobs. They are less likely to own a car (or have access to one), and often live in areas where jobs are scarce. Their parents are less likely to be able to help them get a foot in the door at a local business. They may attend schools that are, or are perceived as, inferior, making them less attractive to prospective employers. And they may face discrimination based on race, class or other factors. None of those barriers is new, of course, but they may have grown higher as the U.S. has become more unequal and more segregated by class.
Unfortunately, low-income teens are also the ones who most need summer jobs. They need the money, of course — a job that might provide pocket-money to a middle-class teen could be a key source of income for someone from a poorer family. But they also need the experience. Young people from low-income backgrounds can’t count on family connections, expensive extracurricular activities or, in most cases, degrees from private colleges to help them land jobs as adults. So they are particularly dependent on work experience to get ahead. Past research has found that at-risk teens who work perform better academically, are less likely to get into trouble with the law and earn more as adults than those who don’t.
Earlier this year, President Obama unveiled a new effort to boost summer employment among teens, especially those from low-income families. Many cities also have their own programs. But the surest way to ensure that teens can find jobs is to improve the overall economy: Because teens are often unattractive to employers (who see them, correctly or otherwise, as inexperienced, unskilled and unreliable) they can have a hard time finding jobs until the unemployment rate gets low enough that companies have no other options. That’s what happened in the late 1990s, when the unemployment rate dropped to 4 percent and teen employment rose as companies scrambled to find enough workers. The economy has shown significant improvement in recent years, but those gains haven’t yet trickled down to some of the hardest-to-reach corners of the job market.
#Brexit
Britain’s shocking decision to leave the European Union continued to roil global financial markets this week. The turmoil is far from over — don’t open that 401(k) statement just yet — but we may be starting to get a clearer picture of how the markets view the impact of the “Brexit.” (Whether markets are right, of course, remains to be seen.)
One way to gauge what investors are thinking is to watch the London stock index known as the FTSE. Or really, two indexes: the FTSE 100 (essentially the 100 biggest publicly traded companies on the London Stock Exchange), and the FTSE 250 (the next-largest 250 companies).
The FTSE 100 is dominated by huge multinational corporations such as the drug giants AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, big banks such as Barclays and HSBC and mining companies like Glencore and Rio Tinto, as well as consumer brands such as Burberry and Unilever. Those companies have customers around the world, insulating them somewhat from the turmoil in Britain; some might even benefit from the sharp drop in the value of the pound, which makes their products look cheaper overseas. The smaller companies in the FTSE 250, by contrast, are mostly domestically focused and are therefore much more vulnerable to a downturn in the British economy.
Both indexes cratered when the results of the Brexit vote became clear last Friday. Since its initial drop, however, the FTSE 100 has rebounded and is back to where it was before the vote; the index is up slightly for the year so far. The FTSE 250, however, kept falling after the vote, and although it has rebounded somewhat in the past two days, it remains far below its pre-Brexit level. Taken together, the behavior of the two indexes suggest that investors see the global economy coming through the Brexit drama relatively unscathed, barring further unexpected developments. But they expect Britain to face a long, difficult road ahead.
Number of the week
A survey of influential economists this week found that a strong majority, 58 percent, oppose the idea of a “universal basic income.” That promptedlots of chatteron Twitter (well, at least on the corners of Twitter frequented by econ nerds like me), where the idea of a basic income has drawn a vocal following in recent years. But the survey was too narrow to provide much insight into how economists view the basic income concept more generally. The respondents opposed a very particular version of the proposal. And as Jim Pethokoukis wrote Wednesday, with universal basic income, the details matter.
The idea behind a universal basic income is simple: Instead of the current patchwork of safety-net programs — food stamps, housing assistance, retirement benefits — just give everyone cash. (My colleague Andrew Flowers delved into the topic in much more depth in a great story this spring.) One thing that makes the concept intriguing is that it seems to have support from across the ideological spectrum; liberals like the idea of bolstering the safety net, while conservatives like that a UBI would replace inefficient government programs.
But while the left and right might both like a UBI in theory, it’s always been doubtful that the two sides could agree once they have to start making decisions on how much money to give people and how to pay for it. A well-framed survey of economists might have given some sense of how far apart different groups are.
Instead, the proposal that the surveyor, IGM Forum, a University of Chicago initiative that routinely surveys economists on policy issues, asked economists to evaluate was a particular scenario: “Granting every American citizen over 21-years old a universal basic income of $13,000 a year — financed by eliminating all transfer programs (including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments, and farm and corporate subsidies) — would be a better policy than the status quo.”
The $13,000 figure and other details come from a Wall Street Journal op-ed by conservative author Charles Murray. But Murray’s proposal hardly represents a consensus view of what a UBI should look like. Many supporters want higher payouts; many would give payments to children, not just adults; and while most would do away with some safety-net programs, supporters don’t agree about which ones. “This is a dumb question,” University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler wrote. “We’re not going to eliminate Social Security and Medicare etc.”
On Wednesday, a coalition of local and national media organizations launched a coordinated barrage of stories on homelessness in San Francisco and what can be done about it. The San Francisco Chronicle has collected most of the stories on its website.
Laura Kusisto says that because of rent increases that are far outstripping wage growth, renters today really do have it harder than their parents did.
We often hear about the median pay in a given field, but medians only tell us so much. In a cool interactive graphic, Nathan Yau shows the distribution of earnings for various occupations.
CORRECTION (July 1, 9:41 a.m.): An earlier version of a chart in this article erroneously included employment data from May through August, rather than June through August.
In news that shouldn't surprise anybody who never figured out how to do a barrel roll in Star Fox, a sophisticated artificial intelligence program was able to take down one of the most respected Air Force fighter pilots to ever Top the Gun and take the highway to the danger zone (he didn't actually Top Gun though because that's a Navy program and this is an Air Force guy). Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene "Geno" Lee, who has participated in thousands of missions in his decades-long career is calling the A.I. the best he's ever seen. I am calling it Skynet.
In a statement, Lee called it "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible A.I. I've seen to date."
"I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed."
So, I guess this is how it all ends. What hope does humanity have when we develop artificial intelligence war machines that operate better than our own human war machines? I'll tell you what hope we have: me. "You're going to save us?" No, I'm going to push the big red button, but I will end our suffering.
Thanks to kitimatdude, who knows Skynet's great grandfather when he sees it and this is it.
Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, presents 10 charts that show progress in absolute poverty, child labor, income spent on food, infant mortality rate, guinea worm infections, teen births, homicide rates, violent crime, education, and literacy.
Whether you like it, hate it, or just couldn’t give a flying fig (personally, I haven’t seen it), the Disney movie Frozen has been a huge success for the Walt Disney Company.
Sometimes the popularity of a film can have an unexpected benefit. With all the hand-wringing among Disney fans about how The Walt Disney Company has been throwing all of its resources into Shanghai Disneyland at the expense of the Disney theme parks in the United States, everyone got a big surprise yesterday when the new ride “Frozen Ever After” opened at the Norway Pavilion in World Showcase at Epcot simply because they spent a lot of money on it and did a swell job.
Disney has used its state-of-the-art internal digital projection systems for the faces of the "human" characters and the Audio-Animatronic figures of Olaf are top of the line and move with great fluidity.
"Frozen Ever After" replaces “Maelstrom,” which I think was well liked simply because it was one of only two rides in World Showcase, the other being “Rio Del Tiempo” in the Mexican pavilion (which was clichéd and boring, but is now much more enjoyable since a rehab several years ago which added the Three Caballeros—Donald, Jose Carioca, and Panchito).
Originally, almost every country’s pavilion was supposed to have a film, show, or ride, though many were the victim of budget cutting. “Frozen Ever After” is destined to be extremely popular judging by its almost three-hour wait time yesterday.
Don’t forget to get a Fast Pass Plus BEFORE you go!
This is the $75 Foldable Chair Backpack available from Brando. The backpacks come in black or blue and have an integrated folding chair behind the shoulder straps. It also has 'I AM PLAY-KING' stenciled across the front of the bag. I'm really not sure why they did that. Personally, I would have left it plain but that's just me and I don't sell backpacks with integrated folding chairs although I'm tempted to start because there's no way I could f*** it up any worse than they just did. *starts selling backpack folding chairs* Well, what do you think? "The seat is covered in spikes." Clearly I overestimated myself.
Keep going for an awkwardly staged action shot.
In Hell No Get Me Off This Thing news, this is a video of a BBC news reporter who was invited to try to break an example of the glass panels used to construct the Zhangjiajie bridge at the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in China. The bridge, opening to the public this summer, is the longest (430m, ~1,410-feet) and highest (300m, ~984-feet) glass bridge in the world. This stunt was orchestrated to assure tourists that the bridge is safe and no amount of stomping is going to make them fall. Thank God it worked, right? I wonder what would have happened if he'd actually managed to break through the panels. I doubt we'd be watching this video, that's for sure. NOTHING TO SEE HERE, FOLKS, JUST GONNA NEED TO COLLECT ALL YOUR RECORDING DEVICES. Personally, I have no interest in walking across a glass-bottom bridge because I'm deathly afraid of falling to my death. Drowning, sharks and falling to my death -- that's really all I'm afraid of. Oh, and ghosts. *apparition appears* You already had your chance, get out of here! Wait -- grandma?! "You disgrace this family so hard." Oh yeah, that's you alright, what do you want? "I came to tell you -- the money...the money is buried..." Oh shit, go on! "The money is buried..." Spit it out already! "Up your ass." Alright, that's it, back into the light with you.
Keep going for the video while I check my ass for money just in case.
Farage's Brexit boats plough towards Parliament. Photo by Andrew Smith in the Londonist Flickr pool
It's just over a week to go before the UK decides whether it leaves the EU or remains — and in London, things have just got weird.
In the strangest political publicity stunt since UKIP leader Nigel Farage nearly killed himself in a plane crash, UKIP leader Nigel Farage has led a flotilla of dozens of trawlers loaded with 'Out' protesters up the Thames, towards Parliament.
UPDATED WITH THEME TUNE: The state of British politics summed up in a clip of a flotilla face-off pic.twitter.com/wK9PKylmJN
Reports tell of the fleet blasting foghorns and flying 'Save Our Country' banners.
But that's not all: in retaliation, 'In' campaigner Bob Geldof has launched his own vessel, armed with pro-Europe supporters, the upshot being a kind of river battle, the like of which hasn't been seen since the Dutch raided the Medway in 1667. It's even been suggested that Farage's flotilla has fired water cannons at Geldof and co.
There is literally a sea battle going on at tower bridge between a vote leave and vote remain flotilla! pic.twitter.com/ruwkiHERWA
Sling bullets, used by Roman soldiers in an attack on a fort in Scotland some 1800 years ago, appear designed to whistle in flight. A battery of them could be terrifying; or perhaps simply very loud and annoying.
These holes converted the bullets into a "terror weapon," said archaeologist John Reid of the Trimontium Trust, a Scottish historical society directing the first major archaeological investigation in 50 years of the Burnswark Hill site.
"You don't just have these silent but deadly bullets flying over; you've got a sound effect coming off them that would keep the defenders' heads down," Reid told Live Science. "Every army likes an edge over its opponents, so this was an ingenious edge on the permutation of sling bullets."
Two extraordinary facts concerning the small bullets with holes (now dubbed type IIIs) also emerged. First, they could be successfully slung in small groups of three or four to create a form of grapeshot. This had been independently confirmed by T Richardson in his work on Roman sling-bullets at the Royal Armouries. Even more intriguingly, the mysterious holes proved to confer an aerophonic quality: in flight, these lead shot whistled, or more accurately gave off a mechanical buzzing sound eerily reminiscent of an agitated wasp (click below to hear for yourself). Remarkable as it sounds, the simplest explanation for this design modification is that it represents an early form of psychological warfare. To put it another way, the Roman attackers valued the terror that hearing the incoming bullets would instil in the defenders.
Because of the one-child-only law in China, combined with the practice of abandoning baby girls to make room for a boy, the country now has a gross gender imbalance of three boys for every girl under the age of 18. So to make sure at least one-third of the men still have a chance of marrying a Chinese woman, the Supreme People's Court of China just passed a law that will forbid Chinese women from marrying a non-Chinese man. But Chinese men will still be able to marry anyone they choose, regardless of race.
Business owners seem to be more concerned with how this new law will affect their businesses than the fairness of it. One owner of a matchmaking business says that allowing men more freedom with marriage is "common sense."
“I had feared that they might also ban men from interracial marriage,” commented the owner of a successful matchmaking business in China’s Fujian Province. “Thankfully common sense has prevailed, although by banning Chinese women from marrying foreigners, my business will have more competition.”
Those in charge of English-speaking schools, on the other hand, are worried the law will prevent them from getting good teachers.
“The majority of teachers are male, and most end up wedding local women,” said a spokesperson for a chain of English-teaching cram schools in Shanghai. “If our teachers are banned from marrying Chinese girls, they may not stay in the country as long, and we risk losing talented staff.”
The law will go into effect by early 2018. Read the full story on East Asia Tribune.
Because everybody needs a hobby, André Quirinus Zurbriggen has spent the last ten years scouring the Swiss Alps collecting a set of rocks that spell out the entire alphabet. No word what he's going to do now that's he's completed the set, but I suggest going for numbers 0 - 10 or risk falling into a deep depression now that your hobby is over. Same thing happened to me when I finished my matchstick Eiffel Tower. I got so depressed I didn't even want to get out of bed in the morning. So you know what I did? "Burned it to the ground and started over?" Shit, I wish I would have thought of that. No, I've just been struggling with it.
Keep going for a couple writing examples.
Spain's anti-austerity, left-wing Podemos ("We Can") Party (previously), which grew out of Spain's Occupy-like Indignados movement, has just published its election manifesto for the June 26 election -- in the form of an Ikea Catalog.
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After months of surveys and testing, a recent study conducted by an agency hired by the Australian government has determined that Pantone 448 C (aka 'opaque couché') is the world's ugliest color. Why conduct a study to find the world's ugliest color? To put it on cigarette packaging to discourage people from smoking, of course. Heck yeah, throwing money down the toilet. They should just burn some too.
The new color was adopted for all tobacco packaging along with graphic health warnings. Now, other governments are following suit. The United Kingdom, Ireland and France have all passed "plain packaging" laws as well, using mockups using the same murky color.
First of all, people who want to smoke aren't going to be dissuaded by the color of a pack of cigarettes. Unless the color actually makes you physically ill, it's not going to do anything. Besides, you could just take the cigarettes out of the diarrhea colored box and put them in anything else. Secondly, I actually like this color. Green and brown are my two favorite colors and this is kind of a shit slurry of them. It's kind of relaxing, like being in the forest. Maybe there are a couple of bunnies scampering around. Is that a babbling brook I hear in the distance? I might try to cash in on this new cigarette pack design and start my own tobacco company named Tranquility. Except instead of tobacco my cigarettes will be all dried leaves and grass because my dad makes me do all the yard work.
Thanks to my pal Dave L, who told me the perception of an ugly color is unique to every individual. Right? I think the ugliest color is my face.
If you were a Norse god/superhero who moonlighted as a carpenter, this Thor Hammer Tool Kit would hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately right now it's just a concept design from Dave's Geeky Ideas!
When not being carried around for Asgardian cosplay, this hammer opens up to reveal all the tools stored inside. The handle is shared with an actual hammer, which is fastened into a removable tray. Beneath the tray is a reservoir for loose tools and nuts/bolts.
In its death throes, the Republican Party is a toilet of racist, sexist, misogynistic bullshit. Today, Iowa State Senator David Johnson has changed his party affiliation to "No Party", and compared the rise of Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, to that of the fascist German National Socialists in the 1930s.
Johnson, who said he would change his registration to No Party, compared Trump’s rise to the top of the GOP ticket to the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
Trump won “by reducing his campaign to reality TV and large crowds and divisive language and all the trappings of a good show for those who like that kind of approach and that’s what happened in the 1930s in Germany,” he told The Guardian.
“I think that’s all I need to say but certainly the fascists took control of Germany under the same types of strategies,” he added.
Johnson, who noted that his own father was part of the first U.S. unit to help liberate a Nazi prison camp, said that Trump’s attacks on the “Mexican” heritage of U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel flew in the face of everything he’d been taught as a child.
“If we’re going to exclude Muslims from traveling to the United States, who’s next? Are we going to come down on Jews? ... He’s not fit to be president,” Johnson told the publication.
This is the Kickstarter for a real Game Of Thrones 'Hodoor' doorstop. Now I don't watch Game Of Thrones because I'll get grounded if my parents catch me watching anything but Saturday morning cartoons but I do live on the internet so I do understand the reference. $37 will get you a 6-inch Hodoor provided they successful secure licensing rights from HBO. That is a pretty expensive doorstop, especially for a plastic one. They said they'd like to make it metal but that would cost over $500 apiece, presumably because they're 3-D printing these things instead of molding and casting them like they should. Alternatively, make your own design and have it 3-D printed by one of those companies online and make me one while you're at it for giving you the idea. We could even sell them under the radar and make a little profit. Obviously, I will be the silent partner in this business venture. Now, call me and we'll discuss the details. "You didn't answer." SILENT PARTNER.
Thanks to hairless, who tried to tell me all humans will be hairless in the future because of evolution. If I had my way all humans would be skinless and boneless too because of a giant meteor.
Just a reminder that no matter who or what may be the flavor of the month, the deadline for filing as an independent candidate for President in Texas was last month.
Will not be on the ballot
If an independent presidential candidate wanted to get on the November ballot in Texas, at this point they would face sky-high hurdles — not the least of which being that the deadline has already passed. So someone like David French, a lawyer and writer rumored to be a prospect, would have to wage a costly legal battle against Texas’ ballot procedures, considered among the most challenging in the country for independent candidates.
“I think Mr. French would have a real, real hard time of doing it and would have to spend a lot of money,” said James Linger, an Oklahoma attorney who worked for Ralph Nader when he sued to get on the ballot in Texas in 2004. “Even if the deadline were moved back, I think he would be in a hard situation in a place like Texas.”
Ballot access in the Lone Star State has gotten more attention than usual during the 2016 presidential race as Republicans dissatisfied with their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, contemplate an independent or third-party alternative. It was reported throughout Tuesday that French, a conservative lawyer from Tennessee, is considering running as an independent at the urging of Trump opponents such as Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol.
Even those sympathetic to the anti-Trump cause acknowledge French’s success would depend on overcoming many obstacles — including his ability to challenge procedures in Texas, whose May 9 ballot deadline was by far the earliest among all 50 states.
[…]
The May 9 deadline came and went in Texas without any candidates applying to run for president as an independent. To do so would have required 79,939 signatures, or 1 percent of the total votes cast for all candidates in the previous presidential election.
The next major deadline in Texas is June 23, which is when independent non-presidential candidates must apply for the ballot. Those filing under that deadline must have submitted a statement declaring their intent to run with the secretary of state’s office by Dec. 14, 2015.
At least one ballot-access expert, Richard Winger, believes the June 23 deadline is vulnerable to a legal challenge because, in his estimation, there is no state interest in making independent presidential candidates file 52 days before their non-presidential counterparts. That was a criteria established by Anderson v. Celebrezze, a 1983 case in which the high court struck down Ohio’s March deadline for independent presidential candidates.
“They have to come up with a state interest because this does harm voting rights,” said Winger, the editor of Ballot Access News. Noting the high court “has never given any comfort at all to supporters of early deadlines,” Winger estimated someone who takes Texas to court over its independent candidates deadlines would have a “75 percent” chance of prevailing.
See here for the background. The only thing that has changed since the May 9 deadline for filing as an indy (with the accompanying petition signature requirements) is the presence of a potential candidate. If you’ve never heard of David French – and honestly, why should you? – I recommend a quick look at what Roy Edroso and Martin Longman can tell you. Beyond that, as noted in the story Ralph Nader sued to get on the ballot in 2004 after failing to collect enough signatures to qualify. A federal court judge ruled that Texas’ ballot access laws were constitutional; this ruling was subsequently affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. I don’t know why the odds of success for a lawsuit would be any better this year than they were in 2004, but I Am Not A Lawyer, so pay no attention to me. Of course, first French would have to actually declare his intention to run, and then he’d have to file a lawsuit, and all of that needs to happen in a fairly short time frame, so we return to my original premise: There ain’t gonna be no independent candidates for President on the ballot in Texas. Feel free to write in whoever you want, but don’t expect any more than that.
(l-r) Harry Potter (Jamie Parker), Albus Potter (Sam Clemmett) and Ginny Potter (Poppy Miller)
It's the theatrical event of the summer, and for Harry Potter fans, here's the first look at some cast portaits.
New play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is set 19 years after the end of the books, with Harry now an overworked employee at the Ministry of Magic, juggling his career with being a dad to three children.
It's the eighth story in the Harry Potter saga, based on an original story by JK Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.
The moody cast shots, by photographer Charlie Gray, show the previously announced Jamie Parker as the now middle-aged Harry, alongside his son, Albus and wife Ginny.
Ouch. Seems that troublesome scar still hasn't healed.
Actor Sam Clemmett has been revealed as playing Albus Severus Potter — the eponymous cursed child — and Poppy Miller takes on the role of Ginny Potter, Harry's wife.
(l-r) Ginny Potter (Poppy Miller) and Albus Potter (Sam Clemmett)
Albus is wearing dark robes, giving no clue as to which House he might end up in as he enrols in Hogwarts.
While the full details of the story remain a secret, the play's website gives the following hints:
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
In an effort to tease fans further, these are the first of three sets of cast portraits the organisers want to drip feed over the coming weeks. Watch this space.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play in two parts, and starts previews on 7 and 9 June. The official opening night is 30 July 2016 at the Palace Theatre.
Take That! The Next Entry in the Popular Legal Adventure Series Comes to Nintendo 3DSTM
Capcom, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, has confirmed that the much-anticipated next installment in the Ace Attorney® courtroom drama series will make its way to North America and Europe as Phoenix Wright®: Ace Attorney® – Spirit of Justice. This narrative adventure stars beloved defense attorneys Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice and sees the return of many familiar faces alongside some interesting new additions. The title will be released as a digital download in the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo 3DS™ family of systems in North America and Europe in September this year at an MSRP of $29.99 / £24.99 / €29.99. A trailer has been released today on the Capcom Press Center introducing some of the cast and the latest gameplay features.Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice sees Phoenix in a brand new location: a courtroom situated in the Kingdom of Khura’in, origin of the Kurain Channeling Technique, where mysterious séance trials decide the fate of all defendants. Brand new to the series is the Divination Séance gameplay mechanic that allows the player to revisit the last moments of a victim’s life. Players must fight to unravel the discrepancies and contradictions between the Royal Priestess’s Insight and what is shown in the séance. Meanwhile, defense attorney Apollo Justice faces his own challenges holding down the fort at the Wright Anything Agency, as he takes on a case that will have explosive implications. Both our heroes are joined by a host of returning friends and adversaries in their fight to bring about justice.The new game is filled with puzzling cases to solve using popular investigative techniques from previous installments. More details on gameplay features will be revealed in the coming months, so stay tuned!
ABOUT CAPCOM
Capcom is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment for game consoles, PCs, handheld and wireless devices. Founded in 1983, the company has created hundreds of games including groundbreaking franchises Resident Evil®, Street Fighter®, Monster Hunter™, Ace Attorney®, Mega Man® and Devil May Cry®. Capcom maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea, with corporate headquarters located in Osaka, Japan. More information about Capcom and its products can be found at www.capcom.com or www.capcom-unity.com
Capcom, the Capcom logo, Ace Attorney, Devil May Cry, Mega Man, Monster Hunter and Resident Evil are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Capcom Co., Ltd., in the U.S. or other countries. Street Fighter is a registered trademark of Capcom U.S.A., Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
In news that shouldn't surprise anybody who never figured out how to do a barrel roll in Star Fox, a sophisticated artificial intelligence program was able to take down one of the most respected Air Force fighter pilots to ever Top the Gun and take the highway to the danger zone (he didn't actually Top Gun though because that's a Navy program and this is an Air Force guy). Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene "Geno" Lee, who has participated in thousands of missions in his decades-long career is calling the A.I. the best he's ever seen. I am calling it Skynet.
This is the $75 Foldable Chair Backpack available from Brando. The backpacks come in black or blue and have an integrated folding chair behind the shoulder straps. It also has 'I AM PLAY-KING' stenciled across the front of the bag. I'm really not sure why they did that. Personally, I would have left it plain but that's just me and I don't sell backpacks with integrated folding chairs although I'm tempted to start because there's no way I could f*** it up any worse than they just did. *starts selling backpack folding chairs* Well, what do you think? "The seat is covered in spikes." Clearly I overestimated myself.
Keep going for an awkwardly staged action shot.
In Hell No Get Me Off This Thing news, this is a video of a BBC news reporter who was invited to try to break an example of the glass panels used to construct the Zhangjiajie bridge at the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in China. The bridge, opening to the public this summer, is the longest (430m, ~1,410-feet) and highest (300m, ~984-feet) glass bridge in the world. This stunt was orchestrated to assure tourists that the bridge is safe and no amount of stomping is going to make them fall. Thank God it worked, right? I wonder what would have happened if he'd actually managed to break through the panels. I doubt we'd be watching this video, that's for sure. NOTHING TO SEE HERE, FOLKS, JUST GONNA NEED TO COLLECT ALL YOUR RECORDING DEVICES. Personally, I have no interest in walking across a glass-bottom bridge because I'm deathly afraid of falling to my death. Drowning, sharks and falling to my death -- that's really all I'm afraid of. Oh, and ghosts. *apparition appears* You already had your chance, get out of here! Wait -- grandma?! "You disgrace this family so hard." Oh yeah, that's you alright, what do you want? "I came to tell you -- the money...the money is buried..." Oh shit, go on! "The money is buried..." Spit it out already! "Up your ass." Alright, that's it, back into the light with you.
Keep going for the video while I check my ass for money just in case.
Because everybody needs a hobby, André Quirinus Zurbriggen has spent the last ten years scouring the Swiss Alps collecting a set of rocks that spell out the entire alphabet. No word what he's going to do now that's he's completed the set, but I suggest going for numbers 0 - 10 or risk falling into a deep depression now that your hobby is over. Same thing happened to me when I finished my matchstick Eiffel Tower. I got so depressed I didn't even want to get out of bed in the morning. So you know what I did? "Burned it to the ground and started over?" Shit, I wish I would have thought of that. No, I've just been struggling with it.
Keep going for a couple writing examples.
After months of surveys and testing, a recent study conducted by an agency hired by the Australian government has determined that Pantone 448 C (aka 'opaque couché') is the world's ugliest color. Why conduct a study to find the world's ugliest color? To put it on cigarette packaging to discourage people from smoking, of course. Heck yeah, throwing money down the toilet. They should just burn some too.
This is the Kickstarter for a real Game Of Thrones 'Hodoor' doorstop. Now I don't watch Game Of Thrones because I'll get grounded if my parents catch me watching anything but Saturday morning cartoons but I do live on the internet so I do understand the reference. $37 will get you a 6-inch Hodoor provided they successful secure licensing rights from HBO. That is a pretty expensive doorstop, especially for a plastic one. They said they'd like to make it metal but that would cost over $500 apiece, presumably because they're 3-D printing these things instead of molding and casting them like they should. Alternatively, make your own design and have it 3-D printed by one of those companies online and make me one while you're at it for giving you the idea. We could even sell them under the radar and make a little profit. Obviously, I will be the silent partner in this business venture. Now, call me and we'll discuss the details. "You didn't answer." SILENT PARTNER.
Thanks to hairless, who tried to tell me all humans will be hairless in the future because of evolution. If I had my way all humans would be skinless and boneless too because of a giant meteor.
