Alisongrinter

One of the sad truths of the capital defense business is that some trial lawyers who show up to defend their clients have been known to sleep through their trials, fail to interview witnesses, or are too drunk to do their jobs. And yet reviewing courts almost invariably determine that such lawyers provided perfectly competent defense. As one Texas judge put it in the face of such allegations: “The Constitution does not require perfection in trial representation.” So, for instance, judges in Houston continued to appoint lawyer Jerome Godinich to represent capital defendants even as he missed one filing deadline after another, depriving his clients of crucial judicial review. That there is not really such thing as an ineffective lawyer is one of the cardinal rules of the death penalty machine. But dare to be an effective one? Well, that’s another story.

All other things being equal, the south, parts of the west, and upper midwest are the happiest places in the United States according to a recent study.

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With just about five weeks remaining in the 2014-15 regular season, we present another edition of FiveThirtyEight’s NBA Power Ratings. How do these numbers work? In a nutshell, each team is ranked according to a projection of its strength over the upcoming week — and the upcoming week only — using Real Plus-Minus (RPM) player ratings provided by Jeremias Engelmann and Steve Ilardi. For more details on the methodology, see our introductory rankings post.

A few observations on this week’s ratings:

• Don’t look now, but the Charlotte Hornets suddenly have a 53 percent chance of making the playoffs in the East. Winners of six of their last seven games (including five straight), they also saw their long-term talent rating improve greatly with the prospect of guard Kemba Walker returning for the season’s stretch run. A knee injury has kept Walker out of action since late January.
• The Atlanta Hawks, owners of the league’s second-best record, still rank just 8th in our power ratings. What’s going on? It’s not their loss Saturday to the lowly Sixers, nor is it a disconnect between the team’s winning percentage and its point differential (they rank third overall in Basketball-Reference’s adjusted efficiency differential, so they’ve been winning by margins plenty strong). Instead, the issue is similar to what plagued the Hawks last week: Injury-related playing time allocations are working against them in the short term. This time, FiveThirtyEight favorite Kyle Korver sat out over the weekend and is listed as day-to-day in the injury report, which means more projected minutes for Kent Bazemore. Since Korver carries one of the best RPM ratings in the NBA (+4.5) and Bazemore sports one of the worst (-3.8), any shift in minutes from the former to the latter takes a toll on Atlanta’s power rating.
• The week’s two biggest risers are the New Orleans Pelicans and Dallas Mavericks, and both boosts come largely because key players are returning from injury.
• Pelicans superstar Anthony Davis, owner of the seventh-best RPM in the NBA, suited up last week for the first time since aggravating his nagging shoulder injury on February 21, and his presence alone improved New Orleans by 2.5 rating points (to say nothing of the points gained by not having to play his backups as much). For Dallas, the big gains come with Tyson Chandler and Chandler Parsons re-joining the lineup. Our projections expect that pair to play about 54 combined minutes per team game over the upcoming week — an increase of 25 minutes per team game that yields a 1.9-point rating improvement for the Mavericks. They also project to gain 0.6 rating points via decreased minutes for players lower on the depth chart.
• Since the news of Jimmy Butler’s injury broke too late to be accounted for in last week’s rankings, the full extent of its damage can be seen in Chicago’s power rating this time around. A reduction of 26 minutes per game to Butler’s projection cost the Bulls 1.7 rating points, while big playing-time upticks for low-rated wings E’Twaun Moore and Doug McDermott set Chicago’s rating back by another 1.5 points. The loss of Butler was much more damaging to the Bulls than that of Derrick Rose, whose injury only cost the team about 0.4 points of power rating after his backups were accounted for.
• The Miami Heat have been hemorrhaging playoff probability for weeks now and are down to just a 30 percent chance of making the postseason despite sitting at 93 percent back on Feb. 2. The team has gone 7-8 since then, while Indiana, Boston and Charlotte — at that time, three of Miami’s chief competitors for the final pair of unclaimed Eastern Conference playoff slots — have gone a combined 28-14. But Miami’s bigger problem is that their talent pool has been drained, even after winning the trade deadline. Highly-rated players such as Chris Bosh, Hassan Whiteside, Luol Deng and prized deadline acquisition Goran Dragic are all injured (or listed as day-to-day), while the team is projected to give big minutes to poor RPM players such as Henry Walker, Michael Beasley and rookies Tyler Johnson and Shabazz Napier.

Excellent news from a new poll of a thousand Texas voters sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Among the highlights:

Texans prefer drug treatment over prison by a 61 percent to 26 percent margin. The number bumps up to 73 percent when you limit the question to drug possession cases.

Some 71 percent of Texans believe the justice system should only be involved in extreme cases of chronic truancy, not workaday cases, while just 24 percent of respondents disagreed.

A solid 57 percent of Texans support adjusting property theft thresholds upward to account for inflation, with 37 percent opposed.

A similar number - 57 percent - supported reducing the time inmates spend in prison so they can be monitored on community supervision.

Clearly the public is ahead of their elected officials on these topics, though they have an opportunity to catch up to them over the next few months.

The last time anyone saw Tim Tebow on a football field it was during the Patriots’ 2013 preseason, where he was eventually cut just before the regular season. Two full seasons have now passed since Tebow has been in the league, but that might change soon. According to Ben Volin of the Boston Globe, Tebow is considering attending the NFL veteran combine later this month.

He is currently a college football analyst for ESPN, the results of which have been positive. But he’s apparently trying to catch on with an NFL team again, and quarterbacks coach Tom House has been working with Tebow since he’s been out of the league in order to improve his throwing accuracy. Over that time, House has seen improvement in Tebow’s passing skills, saying “[Tim has gone] from being a little inaccurate and [not throwing] a whole lot of spirals, to throwing very accurate and real good at spinning the ball.”

If that sounds like something a coach of a high school quarterback would say rather than a coach of someone trying to make a living in the NFL, you’re not wrong. Then again, after considering some of his lowlights from his Broncos days, this is perhaps a good start.

The veteran combine will take place in Phoenix on March 22.

[Boston Globe]

 

by Emily Henry

YOUR MIND IS BEAUTIFUL, YOUR BODY STRONG, AND I WANT TO BUY YOU A BURRITO, IF YOU'D LIKE. IF NOT, B-).

SORRY IT LOOKED LIKE I WAS WINKING. I HAD DUST IN MY EYE AND I WAS TRYING TO CHOOSE A FAVE BEYONCE SONG. COULDN'T DO IT!!

DO U LIKE SPIRIT ANIMAL QUIZZES? ME TOO! WHAT'S UR FAVE STEVIE SONG? STEVE NICKS, I MEAN.

I’M SURE YOU'RE BUSY. THIS WILL ONLY TAKE A SECOND AS YOU'RE BIKING PAST: I BET YOU HAVE AN INDOMITABLE SPIRIT.

I HOPE YOU'RE EXPERIENCING DEEP, PROFOUND JOY DESPITE ALL THE BAD THINGS HAPPENING IN OUR SHARED WORLD.

I LOVE MULDER'S ONE-LINERS BUT I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK SCULLY'S THE BACKBONE OF THE DUO. SHE KEEPS THINGS AFLOAT.

WOULD YOU LET ME BUY YOU BBQ? IF YOU ARE VEGAN, I ALSO KNOW OF A VEGAN BBQ RESTAURANT.
IT'S REALLY GOOD.

ISN'T IT STUPID HOW OUR CULTURE SHAMES PEOPLE FOR LIKING FAST-PACED EXCITING BOOKS???

I AGREE THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ENJOYING ROMANCE IN BOOKS AND MOVIES. IT'S FINE!!!

IF I WERE A FROZEN BEVERAGE, I'D BE A SHAMROCK SHAKE. CARE TO SHARE WHAT YOU'D BE? NO? OK, I HOPE YOU HAVE A NICE DAY!

IF YOU SUSTAINED AN INJURY, I'D CALL TIM RIGGINS AND HE'D CARRY YOU TO THE HOSPITAL.

I'M SORRY IF YOU'RE NOT SMILING CUZ THIS WORLD HAS YOU DOWN. IF YOU'RE JUST THINKING, SORRY FOR THE INTERRUPTION!

HERMIONE IS OBVIOUSLY MY FAVORITE CHARACTER. WHAT ABOUT YOU????

WHO ARE YOUR FAVE FEMINIST THINKERS? I'M TRYING TO EDUCATE MYSELF!

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BRAND OF WHISKY? IF YOU DON'T WANT TO ANSWER, I UNDERSTAND.

IF YOU WANT TO BE A RAPPER OR A COMIC OR A GAMER, I SUPPORT THAT AND WON'T THREATEN YOU WITH DEATH AND/OR RAPE!

YOU WILL BE A WONDERFUL CAREERPERSON AND PARENT, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT.

I BET YOU LOVE YOUR JOB.

YOU CAN HAVE THIS BAG OF CAPPUCINO LAYS POTATO CHIPS AS I THINK THEY ARE DISGUSTING. BEST OF LUCK.

I DON'T THINK VAMPIRE DIARIES IS STUPID. IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY SMART WRITING.

IT'S WEIRD HOW HATEFUL EVERYONE IS TOWARD KIM KARDASHIAN, DON'T YOU THINK???

ARE YOU AT ALL INTERESTED IN HEARING ABOUT MY FAVORITE UNDERRATED FEMALE HORROR WRITER??

EXCUSE ME, MS, CARE TO SIGN MY PETITION TO GET ALZHEIMERS-CAUSING INGREDIENTS TAKEN OUT OF WOMEN'S DEODORANT?

Emily Henry is a young, adult writer who is a young-adult writer, and she's wearing the same thing as last time you saw her. Her debut novel, THE LOVE THAT SPLIT THE WORLD, will be available in 2016 from Razorbill/Penguin. She also tweets.

Illustrations by Hallie Bateman.

9 Comments

Previously: The Comment Section For Every Article Ever Written About Intimate Grooming and Tipping and Recipes and the Third Trimester. Nicole is happy to report that after not being able to breastfeed Kid One, Kid Two is breastfeeding like a champ. LIFE IS A RICH TAPESTRY.

Breast is best.

Your issue sounds like a tongue tie, go get it snipped.

Three pediatricians have examined him and said he doesn't have a tongue tie.

It could be a posterior tongue tie.

It COULD be a lip tie.

It's obviously a tie of SOME kind. Just start snipping things inside his mouth until the situation improves.

Read more The Comment Section For Every Article Ever Written About Breastfeeding at The Toast.

by Tricia Louvar

Tricia Louvar is a professional creative sparkplug, a mover of words + ink + paint + sweat. She works, trains, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

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by Haley Mlotek

1. Lost on the New York subway; late to meet a friend; the subway opens up inside a gym where a former co-worker is stationed behind the receptionist desk with the biggest, most sinister smile on her face.

2. Lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood of New York; pouring rain; what I thought was an umbrella turns out to be a very thick copy of Women's Health magazine, torn to shreds.

3. My lawyer calls with "news" but the phone is too static-ey to hear if she means "good" or "bad" news; I am yelling "What kind of news? What kind of news?!" when I wake up.

4. Out to dinner with a person I kind of know but am very intimidated by; she stares at me expectantly but I cannot think of a single question to ask her.

5. All of my GChats with Monica "Horny Jail" Heisey are automatically posted to Twitter; I spend all day sending text messages that say but what I meant to say was

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by Jazmine Hughes

Greetings, my dear readers. After six months editing this humble Drake-themed Toronto-sponsored placenta-covered hair accessory site, I have some truths that I can’t keep from you any longer. Here are some things I haven't been honest about:

I actually know how to do my makeup really well, I’m just too BUSY and IMPORTANT to do so.
I’m actually 105 and have been using placenta masks since day one.
I’m Haley’s Tyler Durden.
I’m Haley.
I’m the girl Drake is crying about in all his songs.
I definitely sweat like a normal person.
I once turned down a date with Donald Glover before he was famous.
I'm actually not a blogger, but more of a bored rich person like Cerie on 30 Rock and just hang around posting things until I can marry rich and design handbags.

Just kidding!!!!!! These are all rumors I made up ABOUT MYSELF. Rumors are fun when they're your own: they can be aspirational, or completely opposite from how you actually are, or just really funny and disgusting! For this month's One Big Question, I asked: "If you could start any rumor about yourself, what would it be? Be as horny as you'd like."

The only rumor I would ever want about myself is that I destroy everyone I have sex with due to the strength of my Beyonce-like thighs.
Pilot Viruet

Did you know that I was the inspiration for Leslie Knope? I don't know, it doesn't make sense because I am not into politics or Indiana or getting stuff done, but I heard it around.

(Side note: As a child I actually tried to start the rumor that I was the baby from "Papa Don't Preach," but I failed.)
Meredith Haggerty

I pass for sweet and unassuming, a Manic Pixie Nice Girl. But in those bland first impressions, I want to bridge the gap between persona and self and tell my co-workers, “I’m a government clone, I’m relying on corporate speak because I don’t know my work-play divide!” I want to tell my date, “My previous boyfriend was Zayn Malik, and he still sends me sexts so you’re not ~irreplaceable~.” All my fanfictions about myself boil down to that head-turning moment in movies where people stare and think, oh, if only we’d known how smart, pretty, funny you are.

The one rumor I need more than want realized cuts through the cookie-cutter nice girl persona and instills fear. I want people who say racist shit around a white Latina who will always pass for white-people agreeable to feel as if they have seven days to live, Ring-style. The guy who mentions ‘illegals’ in my class will get up and leave, never to return. Michelle Rodriguez will apologize sitting up. The next guy who asks me where my family is from will choke on his own well-intentioned spit, once he realizes the bruja that I am. I want those people to hesitate around me. I want that rumor to haunt me for the rest of my damned life, the scarlet letter I’d most proudly wear. Oh, if only we'd known where you saw yourself when we said 'us' and 'them.'
Monica Torres

I think it would be great if everybody thought I was a huge bitch.
Cat Ferguson

"Haley Mlotek is actually 300 years old. She feeds on the blood of thirsty men who slide into her DMs, expecting a #fun and #flirty chat. She can walk properly and with confidence in heels and often wears lipstick without obsessively checking it in her iPhone camera every two minutes."
Haley Bertha Mlotek

I want a rumor that I killed someone who wronged me. I want it to seem like if you cross me, you might end up dead. But I don't want it confirmed and I don't want to have served time. Maybe just someone who I did not like has ended up missing and the rumor is that I made it happen. Is that bad? I just want to be scary.
Gaby Dunn

I would like to start a rumor that I was one of the customers who contracted Hepatitis A from eating contaminated green onions at a Pennsylvania Chi Chi's location in 2003, but survived. I settled with the restaurant and won millions of dollars, but I'm not eligible to access it until I turn 25.
Gabby Noone

The only goal I’ve ever set for myself is to be “twenty-five sitting on twenty-five mill,” which means I have only six months to increase my net worth by whatever twenty-five million minus fifty six dollars and thirty cents is. Despite several brainstorming sessions with some business-minded friends, I’ve developed no viable businesses or come out with any surprise digital album releases. My brightest idea was for a start-up: BurritNo-Middle-Man—a burrito delivery app like Seamless, except you can only order burritos and someone delivers the burrito directly to your mouth, cutting out the metaphorical middleman of having to go downstairs to retrieve the order, go back upstairs, open the container, lift the burrito, and carry it all the way to your mouth. This is all just to say that the only thing I want for my 25thbirthday is for people—people I know and people I don’t—to be under the impression that I am sitting on twenty-five million dollars. I want people to come out of the fucking woodwork—especially those who claimed that BurritNo-Middle-Man wasn’t “feasible” and didn’t make “sense” and that “no one wants strangers delivering burritos to their mouths”—and grovel to be my friend.
Maria Yagoda

Okay my favourite rumour about me is one I accidentally started in this piece I wrote for The Cut where I joke about things I've "done" after listening to too much Taylor Swift. One of the things is "dated Jake Gyllenhaal," which is, like the rest of the things in the piece, 100% a joke. Now, though, the most searched term beside my name is "Monica Heisey Jake Gyllenhaal" and I am very attached to this as a fact. Everyone please continue to The Secret sweet, baby-faced JG into my life via Google, thank you for your hard work. One day he will move in with my partner and I and then the rumour "Monica Heisey is the happiest woman in New York" will be a true fact.
Monica Heisey

I've never been on a plane because I have metal bones. I was born that way. I can't get through any metal detectors or even get an MRI! When I was in elementary school the mean kids would stick magnets to my back. It was truly awful. The worst part has to be the weight, though. I mean, I'm tall and skinny but I weigh 600 pounds. I can't swim or get on elevators. Oh, and sex on top? Forget about it! Do you know how many men I've crushed? I live a lonely, lonely life. I've never broken a bone, though!
Veronica de Souza

"Jaya Saxena uses waffle-scented lube as perfume."
Jaya Saxena

I know it sounds pathetic, but I'd really like to get people on board with the "Akilah is Kerry Washington's cousin" rumor. It's completely false, but it's kinda like how if you hang out with really hot people, people assume you're really hot by virtue of just knowing them. Kerry isn't only hot, she's smart, she's talented, she's an it girl. We only really share cheekbones, but even if people thought I was her chubbier, younger cousin, that'd still give me some desperately needed street cred*.

*Cred on Scandal fan blogs.
Akilah Hughes

All the sexual rumors about me are positive and 100% true so I don't need to start any of those. My vagina already has five stars on Yelp and four $'s. So instead, I'd start the rumor that I'm in the Illuminati. Note: this is exactly what someone already in the Illuminati would say.
Alexis Wilkinson

It was I, and not noted cool guy Jermaine Dupri, who penned the 1992 Kris Kross hit "Jump." As a business savvy and prescient youth I wrote the song in the hopes of living off the royalties it would surely generate from being played before every single jump ball at every single NBA game ever. Though months after the release of "Jump" House of Pain put out "Jump Around," eating into my profits, the plan more or less worked, and now I just keep my day job in TV news for the lolz.
Sarah-Joyce Battersby

I only got my job at The Hairpin because I slept with Jazmine.
Anna Fitzpatrick

That Quentin Tarantino sucked my toes. Oh, wait….
Beejoli Shah

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Who's a naughty little stowaway? Is it you? Is it you? Yes it is! You're the naughty little stowaway who was found in a traveler's suitcase this week at New York's LaGuardia Airport.

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The polling firm YouGov released a poll Tuesday asking respondents: “How would you fare during the apocalypse?” The results, and especially the partisan split, engendered a healthy debate among the FiveThirtyEight staff. Here’s an edited transcript of our Slack conversation.

simone: So here’s a partisan YouGov poll on whether people think they could survive the apocalypse. Republicans think they’re more likely to survive the apocalypse than other people in their communities. Democrats and independents, less so. What do you guys think?

benc: Well, I think they’re right!

neil_paine: If you aggregated the whole population (all three groups), you’d see a definite pattern where the “survive longer” bin is larger than the “not survive as long” bin. So there’s definitely a bias across everyone to think they’d survive longer. … That’s one point. Another question is exactly how delusional the Republicans’ particular distribution is.

mona: I suspect that if they used nationalities instead of political affiliation here, you would see that most Brits don’t think they’ll survive too long. #realisticallylowlifeexpectations

benc: What would help you survive the apocalypse? Guns would probably help. Living out in the country away from other people/zombies/plagues would probably help. A distrust of the new robot-controlled government would probably help. Guess who have guns, live in the country and distrust the government? Republicans!

micah: I’m with Ben, if we’re talking a zombie apocalypse, being armed will help:

neil_paine: Can we look at the most likely apocalypses? Seems like those attributes @benc lists are more useful in some scenarios than others

simone: Yeah, what about global warming?

benc: Global warming is a good point, @simone. On the one hand, Democrats believe in it! On the other hand, they live on the coast and will all die.

neil_paine: I mean, shouldn’t our mean expectation be that no one is truly more prepared than others, and that survival will largely depend on random effects?

benc: Oh sure @neil, be all rigorous about it. Also, keep in mind people self-segregate by ideology. So when Republicans say they’d outlive others in their communities, they think they’d outlive other Republicans.

simone: I think Republicans are less likely to survive because they’re older. If our apocalypse is zombies, say, they’ll have a harder time outrunning them.

benc: Ooh, that’s a good point @simone. Then again, they also have more children.

jody: But the wording of this question is “apocalyptic disaster,” not “slowly rising sea levels.” This is tapping into conspiratorial thinking, where there’s actually an interesting common ground with the far right and far left. I think we need to bring in some polling on that front.

micah: Republicans also tend to live in more rural areas though, more places to hide from zombies.

jody: Useful: Statistical Mechanics Finds Best Places To Hide During Zombie Apocalypse. So who is more likely to read statistical modeling for advice on how to deal with Zombies — Republicans or Democrats?

[10:44 AM] natesilver: joined #apocalypse

carl: I think maybe we’re misreading the poll. “47% of Democrats say that they’d live as long as most other people in their community.” Sounds to me like it’s rooted in Democrats’ greater emphasis on reducing inequality.

mona: Black Americans are more likely to have thought about preparing for a natural disaster:

simone: And are more likely to be Democrats.

mona: Southerners are also more prepared!!!

carl: Notable: Highest-income families are least likely to have given no thought to natural disasters. Hypothesis: Lower-income families have other things to worry about.

mona: Other fascinating results in the poll, guys: ONLY 1 in 5 SAY THEY DON’T THINK THERE WILL BE AN APOCALYPSE.

neil_paine: @mona 80% say they think there will be an apocalypse, but 69% think it’s unlikely (39% very unlikely).

mona: Wikipedia says the next upcoming apocalypse is going to be sometime between now and September 2015, although the previous 30 or so entries appear to have been misguided. Unless, you know, everything we think we know actually isn’t real.

carl: I’m more interested in what people think will cause the apocalypse. Not surprisingly, way more Democrats think climate change will do it. Interestingly, more Republicans expect it to come from worldwide revolution. Unclear if they think revolution is more likely, or if Democrats consider worldwide revolution less apocalyptic. Also, I’m disappointed AI wasn’t one of the options. It’s terrifying.

simone: Wait, I think I understand the split! “The apocalypse” probably means the biblical apocalypse to Republicans. So, if more of them are Christian, they’re more likely to think they’ll go on up to the spirit in the sky on Judgment Day.

neil_paine: I think @simone is onto something here.

simone: It’s in the poll: “Asked what the most likely cause of the end of civilization is, nuclear war was the most popular option, chosen by 28% of Americans. Climate change and judgement day tied for second place with 16%, followed by worldwide revolution at 9%.”

mona: omg 2% zombies.

carl: A slightly higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats think weather is very or somewhat likely to cause a natural disaster in their community in the next year. Does that mean belief in extreme weather is nonpartisan, or do more Republicans live in extreme-weather territory?

micah: I really think for most apocalypses, living in a city is a huge disadvantage. Nuclear, disease, zombie, resource scarcity.

benc: Yeah, cities really didn’t work before technology and medicine, both of which would presumably be wiped out by the apocalypse. Then again, @micah, lots of food and supplies in cities.

neil_paine: Hmm, so maybe the community comparison in the question is meaningless to people who are far-flung in the middle of nowhere.

micah: It’s always the cities that get fucked up in disaster movies.

jody: @micah Disagree! The last couple years have seen the rise in a conversation about resiliency. This was a big post-Sandy buzzword in New York City. Density means more resources, less isolation, stronger community bonds, more infrastructure (if it’s well taken care of).

benc: @jody: Urban residents actually live longer than rural ones. Granted, that’s at least in large part due to access to health care, which might not fare so well when the doctors are all zombies.

simone: But do Republicans think an apocalypse scenario is “every man for himself” while Democrats expect the community to work together @jody? The wording of the YouGov question implies “every man for himself” I think.

benc: Do we think there’s a difference in survival likelihood for the libertarian wing of the GOP vs. establishment conservatives?

jody: @benc This is the interesting space for me. Has the “I’m ready for the apocalypse” wing of the GOP become a stronger voice over the last 8 years?

micah: Rand Paul would survive for sure.

walt: Rand Paul would be first to go. Rand Paul is an opthamologist.

benc: Is Hillary a prepper? She has a basement stocked with email servers!

walt: All of you are fuckin’ wrong. Who survives the apocalypse is hardly a city/country matter, it’s a notion of skills. Assuming you survive the contagion or whatever, the next step is (a) not dying from simple diseases and (b) producing food. The question is not who is going to survive by such matters of party affiliations.

jody: @walt that is, literally, the question.

walt: The Republicans would run out of gasoline in their trucks halfway down the desert and die of dehydration. Most people would die of dehydration. Which party is more equipped to hydrate properly? That’s the question.

benc: So basically, by @walt’s logic, Minnesotans are best prepared.

micah: Conclusion: Republicans are right. They are more likely to survive than Democrats and independents. (I would die within the first week.)

walt: So false. Republicans live in arid, hot climates.

benc: I say the most likely apocalypse is the robot apocalypse. In the absence of Neo, the best prepared are coders, who are all a bunch of damned libertarians. In the case of zombies, Republicans win. Plague goes to Democrats. And under no circumstances does anyone from FiveThirtyEight survive more than 15 minutes.

meghan: Wait — why are Democrats better at plague?

micah: Yeah? Plague hits cities hardest.

benc: Plague requires collective action, institutions. Probably some meetings. Democrats friggin’ love meetings.

simone: WHAT ABOUT JUDGMENT DAY? My money’s on the Rs for that.

walt: Oh def. Judeo-Christian apocalypse.

mona: This survey was the equivalent of asking, “Do you foresee that the unforeseeable might happen? If so, do you think you will do better than other people at surviving it?” i.e. ARE YOU BLOODY ARROGANT??

neil_paine: Ding ding!

benc: @mona, the poll was of Americans. We’re all arrogant.

Did you like this format? Let us know if you’d like to see more of these internal staff conversations, whether on important news topics or stuff like this. Leave a comment or send us an email!

How soon is too soon to begin introducing basic theory and Lacanian self-definition to an infant? A primer.

ME: what do we need to understand before we can understand post-structuralism
BABY: fnehhh
ME: very good
we need to understand structural linguistics
now what does "fnehhh" mediate between
BABY: fnehhh
ME: that's right
it mediates between abstract ideas and reality
BABY: fnehhh
ME: you've made your point, don't belabor it

Read more How To Talk To Babies About Post-Structuralism at The Toast.

There are a wealth of ways for kids to learn computer science and programming these days. Add to the mix: Google's own CS First curriculum, a free program with a variety of themes for all kinds of kids' interests.

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The Seth Rollins vs. Jon Stewart feud just got physical.

In case you haven’t been following along, the issue between the two started with Seth Rollins threw shade at ‘The Daily Show’ during a segment on Raw. Stewart responded by cutting a promo, Rollins responded and the two came face-to-face on ‘The Daily Show’ itself.

Rollins continued the beef on Monday’s Raw, staging his own Daily Show episode in the middle of the ring, complete with jokes about Rosewater, anti-New Jersey cracks and J&J Security cackling in the background. Stewart arrived via entrance music and pre-prepared TitanTron video, confronted Rollins and ran him down for being “a swat team stripper with Lady Gaga’s hair.”

Their argument almost came to blows until Randy Orton interrupted, and then it came to … uh, low blows as Stewart escaped. And now here it is, your moment of zen.

This picture, taken by amateur photographer Martin Le-May, isn’t what it seems. It looks like the weasel is using a woodpecker as a Lyft, but actually, he’s trying to murder the poor guy.

The woodpecker landed in front of us and I feared the worst. I guess though our presence, maybe 25 metres away, momentarily distracted the weasel. The woodpecker seized the opportunity and flew up and away into some bushes away to our left. Quickly the bird gathered its self respect and flew up into the trees and away from our sight.

The woodpecker left with its life, the weasel disappeared into the long grass, hungry. (Via)

Here’s the un-zoomed shot, courtsey of Le-May:

Caption contest? Caption contest. “Take me to your lead—weeeeeeeeee!”

Your turn.

Via Martin Le-May, iTV

by Haley Mlotek

Here are three face masks I have in current rotation, as well as a guide to using them appropriately and some little-known facts about the restorative powers of slathering a fine layer of goo over your lady face in order to trick a man into thinking you're pretty and then marrying you, lol, shoutout to my husband if he's reading this. None of them contain placenta because I have tried to be open-minded about the fact that The Hairpin is now exclusively a placenta products blog but honestly I am struggling with it at this point in time.

1. Chamomile Concentrate Anti-Blemish Masque, Aesop
Definitely my favorite, two tiny thumbs way up, I love this masque so much. The fact that they spell it with the "que" should tell you just how fancy you'll feel when you spread a very thin layer over your red pimply cheek while you think about how great and clear your skin was when you were eating well and exercising all the time and hope that you can buy your way to a conventional level of attractiveness because that is about all the effort you can be bothered to put it into anything that is not work/red-wine based social gatherings/all-day GChat conversation/constantly refreshing Twitter-related.

This is the masque I use when I really want to look nice but I don't have a lot of time; it dries in like five minutes, tops, so I put it on right before I get into the shower and I really do think my skin looks AND feels better immediately afterwards. Also it smells so good!!

Good for: people who believe acne is their body judging them for their poor life decisions.

2. Luminizing Black Mask, Boscia
Very good mask, not as fancy in the spelling, but still worth a try. I have heard from some friends with sensitive skin that it can be a little irritating, so, you know, I guess this is the obligatory part of my #beauty #content when I tell you to always do a patch test before a full face; drink the milk without buying the cow etc. Taking it off in front of a friend or a husband is always great because it looks fucking horrifying when you're peeling it off your face. It "dries," I guess, but the consistency stays kind of slick, so you look like you are peeling off whatever that black goo Scarlett Johansson trapped her victims with in Under The Skin, have you seen that? I just watched it, I liked it, I like any horror movie about torturing men that reminds me of my beauty products, so.

Good for: people who like to terrify their friends/roommates/significant others with their skincare regimens, also probably for people with tough not-sensitive skin shells and who want a good solid layer of skin removed.

3. Clear Improvement Active Charcoal Mask, Origins
Just bought this impulsively last weekend. I went into Sephora for "one quick second" to just replace "one moisturizer," ALWAYS a terrible idea, I can't even tell you what I bought or what I spent because listen I've already told you way too much about me and even I have my limits, but this was a last-minute addition to those little baskets Sephora employees hand out smugly like "lol yeah right you're only buying the amount of products you can fit in your tiny hands just take this and give us all your money you dumb bitch." Anyway what was I saying? Oh right, this mask. Yes. I am glad I bought it. I had been wanting a really traditional clay/charcoal type mask for those days when I just feel really UNCLEAN. Last Wednesday I had the worst day, like I commend the universe for the "kick me" sign it put on my back because it was truly effective, and so I went out for "just for one drink" which is basically like the "just running into Sephora for one product" of bars, and when I woke up the next morning I very calmly went straight to this bottle and slathered SO much ALL over my face and sat on the floor beside my bed with my back up against the frame until I could feel the mask crackling—this mask has a very satisfying multi-sensory layer to it, I love hearing it dry—and then I got up and took the HOTTEST shower and came out with all my problems and stresses steamed away. It was great.

Good for: people who are little babies about normal problems and like to put a skincare-treatment buffer between a bad day and a good day.

HONORARY MENTION: Fabulous Face Oil, Aesop
I use this every night. Lol jk I use this on the nights when I actually feel like taking care of my skin (a generous estimate would put this occurrence at three-four times per week) and it also smells so good. It feels so good. Like of all the dumb superfluous products you don't really need but rely on because they relax some base part of your lady brain, an OIL is SURELY the most luxurious texture available on the market. The product comes in a DROPPER. That is some top-notch-boss-lady-self-care-treat-yourself shit.

Good for: people who know they're fucking worth it (you).

Previously: What Happens If You Put Placenta On Your Face?

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In 2012, 23-year-old Jyoti Singh was returning from a night at the movies with a male friend in Delhi, India when they caught a ride on a minibus. Inside, six men beat her with iron rods and gang-raped her. She died two days later from her injuries. In a jailhouse interview, one of the men convicted in the attack now says the rape was Singh's fault, because she was out at night.

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Texas House freshman Matt Rinaldi has filed a bold and inevitably controversial bill, HB 1168, which creates a defense to charges of resisting arrest, search, and detention if the underlying search or detention was "unlawful."

So resisting arrest would become permissible when a cop unlawfully searched or detained a suspect. See the very simple, straightforward bill language. A far narrower version, but similar in concept, backed by the NRA, passed in Indiana in 2012.

There are Democrats who want to hold cops accountable by authorizing (worthless, redundant) civilian review boards to second guess statutorily hamstrung departmental disciplinary processes. But leave it to a libertarian Republican to suggest that victims of illegal searches and seizures by police should be granted the right of front-line self defense!

Basically, this is a Stand Your Ground law aimed at the cops. And say what you will about the suggestion, it would probably be a greater deterrent to false arrests and Fourth Amdendment violations than Texas judges appear capable of acting post hoc.

Given Rinaldi's lowly freshman status and the fact that he backed the ill-fated Coup-That-Wasn't against the Speaker on opening day, it's hard to imagine legislation this big overcoming the storm of law enforcement opposition that surely awaits it if the Legislature were ever to appear to take it seriously. But his suggestion gets to the core of the debate over police accountability more directly and viscerally than proposals for bodycams or civilian review boards.

If only because the debate should be immensely entertaining, Grits hopes Rinaldi's bill at least gets a hearing, perhaps considered in the context of a range of other approaches to police accountability. If nothing else, this bill sends a message that Texans are serious about putting an end to unaccountable police misconduct.

ap64:

Can somebody tell me something? Why does Skeletor look like he’s jerkin’ dicks in EVERY GIF I FIND OF HIM???

Martha Stewart, seen above telling the folks at Chipotle how big to make her burrito, sat down with Andy Cohen at 92nd Street Y to promote her new book, Living the Good Long Life: A Practical Guide to Caring. It was there that Stewart revealed that she’s got some serious joint rolling skills, and she’s critical of other folk’s sloppy work. From The Hollywood Reporter:

“I was driving here tonight … and there was this stupid ice cream truck in front of me. ‘Something Good Cream’ or something. And we pulled up right next to it … and a girl and a guy were smoking joints … I said, ‘Boy, those are sloppy joints.'”

To which she added, “Of course I know how to roll a joint.”

She credits her knowledge to rolling cigarettes, but I think it’s a lot more fun to picture Martha Stewart lighting up and chilling out to Lee “Scratch” Perry. Most likely eating Jell-O pudding with a big wooden spoon.

Later she was grilled on her f*ck, marry, kill choices between Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Gates (called shag, marry, kill in the interview, which is lame). You can see the results below or you can easily guess her choices through common sense. Trump is clearly doomed before a word is spoken.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

File this under “things the elderly get that I want now in my 30s.” The “Robear” designed by Japanese robotics company RIKEN is primarily designed to lift elderly patients out of bed and into wheelchairs, taking off the strenuous burden that normally rests on human caregivers. Japan is expecting a large elderly population in the coming decades and RIKEN wants to capitalize on this and the fact that we can’t really spend our time taking care of our aging parents anymore because jobs.

My questions of course are, do they talk like Teddy Ruxpin? Will they give you random hugs?

Please give me a Robear, I cannot get out of bed in the morning and this is the perfect solution. He can just plop me directly into the bath tub and maybe insert a coffee IV into my arm every morning. [Engadget]

The Conservative Political Action Conference—the largest and most influential gathering of conservative activists every year—is typically portrayed as a freak show. This reputation isn’t always unfair. On the main stage in a given year, you might watch a video montage of cable news luminaries saying mean things about the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, or you might see Sarah Palin waving a Big Gulp over her head, or you might hear Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson discuss how long it takes to contract genital herpes. If you wander down Radio Row, where talk radio hosts snag conservative VIPs for quick impromptu interviews, you’ll see frat bros sporting blue blazers and American flag shorts, Tea Party activists in breeches and tri-corner hats, and a tall mustachioed gentleman in a cowboy hat and a “Cops Say Legalize Pot Ask Me Why” T-shirt. (He’s there every year.)  

Scrooge McDuck is back! Deadline reports that Disney is relaunching the cartoon Ducktales to air on Disney XD. The rebooted series will obviously include Scrooge's grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, plus Donald Duck, "as they embark on high-flying adventures worldwide."

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As the weather starts to warm up, grilling and other outdoor cooking sounds better and better. If you're interested in doing some slow cooking with your electric smoker, this chart tells you how to do it right with 17 different kinds of meat.

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The gender pay gap has been getting a lot attention. It's an issue needs to be addressed proactively, but it can be useful to know the industries where this gap is widest. Here are the worst paying jobs for women, based on median earnings.

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According to director Corbin Bernsen (yes, the former LA Law actor known, according to his IMDB bio, for his “blond and brash, rugged, hirsutely handsome good looks, impish grin and aggressive courting style”) the idea for Christian Mingle: The Movie (which hit DVD last month and aired on UP TV February 8th) didn’t come from Christian Mingle, it came from Bernsen. To hear Bernsen tell it, he just thought that a Christian Mingle movie was something that should exist, so he approached the Christian Mingle people, and they were kind enough to let him use the name. Pro tip: if you don’t want people to think your movie is a paid advertisement for Christian Mingle, maybe don’t call it Christian Mingle: The Movie.

Though you might not know him beyond his aggressive courting, Bernsen has actually directed four previous faith-based films™. He has been described as a born-again Christian in various bios, but when asked the question directly, he tends to reject the label. He speaks earnestly and fairly unobnoxiously about his faith, and in general, sounds like a more accessible alternative to Kirk Cameron, the kind of guy who’d tell you you can believe in God without hating queers or thinking bananas refute evolution. Basically, he doesn’t seem like a heartless profiteer looking to pimp the same horseshit cultural divide, and I tend to think that’s reason enough not to just sh*t on him out of hand. A decent film with a Christian message? Let’s at least admit the possibility.

A kinder, better, gentler kind of Christian, the kind you could bring home to your agnostic mom. I like that. Was his film still a chore to sit through? Oh sweet mother of God yes.

Bernsen described his idea for Christian Mingle: The Movie thusly:

I was talking with my business partner, thinking, “Why can’t there be Christian movies that are faith based, but are just genre films? Instead of the educational, hit-people-over-the-head-with-Jesus movies every time, why not a romantic comedy?”

A fine idea (I guess?), but it seems that in combining the home-spun Christian indie with the soft rock of film genres, Bernsen has created a supernova of caucasity, a movie so white it’d make a Lands End catalog look like Jet Magazine. It stars Party of Five‘s Lacey Chabert as Gwyneth Hayden (a name so white it makes Rooney Mara sound like Quvenzhane Wallis), a single gal with a great job, some gabby girlfriends, and a sassy black secretary. But NO MAN, wouldn’t you know it. Her dishy GFs tell her she’s going to die alone if she doesn’t settle, in typical high-larious rom-com fashion. She works (“works”) as a marketing professional (of course) at the “Maritime Advertising Agency,” under head honcho Stephen Tobolowsky (of Ned Ryerson fame), who shows up to work in a captain’s hat, wears ties with tiny anchors on them, and summons his employees to work with pronouncements like “Clear the decks!” It’s a theme, get it? That’s just good clean comedy writin’ right there.

After being disappointed with the usual dating options, represented solely by a set-up date with a guy who keeps looking past her at the other girls at the bar and makes conversation like “I love stinky cheese. Clogs the pipes, but…”, Gwyneth sees a Christian Mingle commercial on TV one night and decides to take the plunge. Her friends are skeptical, but she assures them “It’s a very popular and legit dating site.” Smash cut to her meet cute with a lost Manning brother played by Jonathan Patrick Moore, the suitably boring named “Paul Wood.” And we’re off!

Now, a note on styling. Some months back, I attended a Halloween party where one of the guys there had dressed as a “basic bitch” – big, done-up wig, dangly earrings, Lululemon pants tucked into Ugg boots, robe top with sash cinch, big sunglasses, and a Starbucks latte cup as a prop. It was uncanny how much he predicted Lacey Chabert’s character in Christian Mingle, the unsatirical basic bitch come to life. If it seems unfair to focus so much on styling, well, facade is really all there is. This entire movie feels like it was filmed inside an IKEA show room. The characters aren’t people, they’re catalog representations of middle class whiteness.

It’s like bland wholesomeness and aspirational styling had a mutant baby that begged you to shoot it in the head. Do they make flannel bullets? Can you hang yourself with a braided belt? Suddenly I want to join the Black Panthers.

But whereas, say, Heaven Is For Real would unabashedly sell you these people as avatars for the “real America,” Christian Mingle is at least self-aware enough to inject some honest introspection. The trailer has an actual record scratch when Wood brings up his “love for the Lord,” and his character is at least self-conscious about how ridiculous he sounds when he refers to his father as “Papa.” Make no mistake, the fact that he’s the love interest for a lost and confused latte-loving city girl (the “city” here being represented by Turlock, California, which is hilarious) is absolutely representative of a deep desire to return to a lost (and mostly imaginary) halcyon era of side-part fifties whiteness, to avoid the hard work of living in a complex modern world. They earnestly sell this fantasy, but are at least aware enough to be embarrassed about it.

The difficulty for The Christian Mingle movie comes in the complication, that part of every rom-com where the love interest finds out the protagonist began the relationship under false pretenses (say, there was a bet that he could make her the coolest girl at her high school, or she’s actually her own mother after a body swap curse), and they split up for a while. The false pretense in Christian Mingle Is Gwyneth “pretending” to be a Christian. Which is revealed when Gwyneth’s too-perfect romantic rival finds a “Christianity For Dummies” book in Gwyneth’s bag on a mission trip to San Luis Potosi. She shows it to Paul’s mom, played by Morgan Fairchild, in front of the entire horrified congregation. Gwyneth read a book? What a Godless f*cking loser!

It’s one of the all-time great record scratch moments, but it also raises the question: if someone wants to be a Christian and is trying really hard to be one, doesn’t that make them a Christian? What else does she need? A baptism? A “blessed” tattoo? Is there hazing, like a holy hell week to commemorate the end of pledge period? It feels like an attempt to placate the Christian base, who might resent a Johnny Come Lately who gets to be a Christian just because she says she is one.

To address this and begin her path to marriageability, Gwyneth tells us via voiceover, “It wasn’t enough to talk about God, I had to know God personally. So we started… a conversation.”

This conversation happens on the most literal terms possible – God, represented by a celestial ray of sunshine (of course), beams through Gwyneth’s window to wake her. “Leave me alone!” she shouts at the Heavens, drawing the curtains. Which “God” blows open again with a sound effect-aided gust of wind. “Ugh, you are so obvious!” Gwyneth says.

I guess it’s supposed to represent Gwyneth wrestling with her faith, but all I could think of was what a nightmare person someone who thought everything in life, down to the smallest ray of sunshine or gust of breeze was God trying to speak directly to them. That news report about a genocide in Uganda was probably just God’s way of telling me not to eat the rest of this quesadilla!

That’s when Gwyneth receives a letter from a smiling ethnic child, still grateful to her white savior in her time of need. “Yer changin’ that girl’s life. Nope, she’s changin’ mine,” and whatnot.

It’s an amazing scene, featuring a letter, read by a little girl with a hilariously bad attempt at a Mexican accent (honestly, how hard was that to find in Southern California?), that starts “Dear Señorita. My sorry por my English no so good…”

That’s it! God speaking through a kind hearted little stereotype from It’s A Small World! Gwyneth should quit her evil marketing job and go get validated by brown people! So she moves back down to Mexico to teach, and by “Mexico” I mean the most hilariously on-the-nose Mr. Belvedere set you’ve ever seen.

Does that kid have a pet burro? You bet your ass that kid has a pet burro.

That’s the thing: Christian Mingle: The Movie wants to be a movie about faith, but mostly it’s a movie where ching chong background music plays when the characters go out for sushi and at least one kid has to be wearing a straw cowboy hat and walking a pet burro to make sure you know they’re in Mexico. Gwyneth takes Paul out for sushi (which he tries valiantly not to be grossed out by), Paul takes Gwyneth out to his family’s favorite restaurant, I sh*t you not, “Steak and Cake.” The film thinks it’s about this culture clash, but mostly it’s just about two people who are really f*cking white.

Christian Mingle: The Movie, aka The Unbearable Whiteness Of Believing.

Vince Mancini is a writer and comedian living in San Francisco. You can find more of his work on FilmDrunk, the Uproxx network, the Portland Mercury, the East Bay Express, and all over his mom’s refrigerator. Fan FilmDrunk on Facebook, find the latest movie reviews here.

Marvel just unmasked its newest superhero and the big twist isn’t just that it’s a woman — it’s that Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman.

You may remember Gwen — she was Peter Parker’s (aka Spider-Man) ex-girlfriend, most recently played by Emma Stone in “The Amazing Spider-Man” (and personally, my pick for who Spider-Man should have ended up with instead of that abysmal Mary Jane). Now, for a single issue, Marvel will be giving Gwen her own storyline as a mutant super-hero, complete with a transformation by way of one very radioactive spider. The issue is part of the Edge of Spider-Verse miniseries that imagines a world in which other people are Spider-Man/Woman instead of Peter Parker.

While Spider-Woman (and her badass costume!) may be a one-off, Marvel has been committing now more than ever to having kickass women save the world in boundary pushing ways — last October they announced female Thor, and earlier in 2014, the company announced the latest Ms. Marvel would be a Muslim teenager, Kamala Khan. Cool! [USA Today]

[Images via Comicbooks.com]