Snob

El presidente de Estados Unidos ha dedicado su mandato a extender la cultura de la muerte por todos los rincones del planeta. Su retirada inminente de la política es una buena noticia para los defensores de la vida. 

El presidente de los EEUU, Barack Obama, comienza este domingo la agenda de su primera visita oficial a España con una recepción en el Palacio Real a la que seguirá un encuentro con el Rey Felipe VI, dentro de un programa que se ha reducido al haber adelantado el regreso a su país por los sucesos de Dallas.

El Monarca recibió este sábado a Obama a su llegada al aeropuerto de Torrejón (Madrid) procedente de Varsovia, donde participó en la cumbre de la OTAN, y esta mañana hará de anfitrión suyo en el Palacio de Oriente.

Tras entrevistarse con el Rey, en compañía del ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, José Manuel García-Margallo, Barack Obama se desplazará hasta la embajada de los EEUU; allí mantendrá un encuentro con sus funcionarios. Después será recibido en el Palacio de la Moncloa por el presidente del Gobierno en funciones, Mariano Rajoy. Tras conversar sobre cuestiones de interés bilateral, del panorama nacional e internacional, ambos harán una declaración ante los medios de comunicación.

Su último acto oficial en Madrid tendrá lugar en la base aérea de Torrejón, donde ha convocado a las tres de la tarde a los líderes de los tres principales partidos de la oposición, el socialista Pedro Sánchez, el dirigente de Unidos Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, y el de Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera.

Desde allí partirá hacia la base naval de Rota (Cádiz) -de uso conjunto por España y EEUU desde hace más de 60 años- con cuya visita concluirá su breve estancia en España, marcada por la matanza de Dallas (Texas), en la que murieron seis policías y cuyo alcance le ha obligado a retornar antes a su país.

La entrada Aterriza en España Barack Obama, rey del aborto y enemigo de la libertad aparece primero en Infovaticana.

Watch all of these if you haven't already. Thank us later.

So honored to be awarded 1st place in the animals category at 2016 IPPAWARDS. Thanks everyone www.ippawards.com 日本 宮城縣 藏王狐狸村 Japan Miyagi | Miyagi Zao Fox Village #Japan #miyagi #miyagizaofoxvillage #foxvillage #ippawards2016 #ipp_awards #ippawards #travelphotography #photography #iphoneography #iphoneonly #iphone #awards #igers #igersjp

A photo posted by @nanakoontheroad on Jul 7, 2016 at 4:09pm PDT

The winners of the 9th annual iPhone Photography Awards have been announced. Submission came in from 139 countries. The images are proof that pictures taken with phones are in no way inferior just because they were not taken with traditional cameras.

The Grand Prize Winner Photographer of the Year Award goes to Siyuan Niu of China for his entry The Man and the Eagle. First, Second and Third Place Photographers of the Year Awards go to Patryk Kuleta of Poland for his image from his series the Modern Cathedrals, Robin Robertis of the United States for her entry titled She Bends with the Wind and Carolyn Mara Borlenghi of the United States from her series Wonderland.

See the top photos here, with links to winners in each of the 19 subject categories. The image above by Erica Wu of San Francisco won first place in the animals category. It was taken in Zao Fox Village in Japan.  -via Uproxx

Cocaine Bear Attracts Visitors To Lexington Businesshttps://t.co/G2Ooo9TXHGpic.twitter.com/ZILmegVmdp

— LEX 18 News (@LEX18News) July 8, 2016

In 1985, notorious Kentucky drug smuggler Andrew Thornton jumped out of his plane with $15 million in cocaine. He became tangled in his parachute and died when he landed in Tennessee, while the cocaine landed in Georgia. Later, a dead bear was found in the Georgia woods. The cause of death was determined to be the 75 pounds of cocaine he ate. That was just the beginning of the saga of Cocaine Bear, or Pablo Eskobear, as he’s sometimes called. After years of travel, the stuffed and mounted bear is back in Kentucky and on display. Read about that bear, or watch the video, at WLEX. -via Arbroath

ENTREVISTA A Revista Feminista Revirada publica estes días na rede o seu número 1. Falamos coa súa equipa de editoras: Giada Maria Barcellona, Mariola Mourelo e Pablo Andrade

Superpetrolero y remolcadores fabricados por ASTANO entrando en la Ría de Ferrol, pasando entre los míticos Castillo de San Felipe y de la Palma, de esta foto han pasado más de 40 años.

Petrolero Texaco South America pasando frente al Castillo de San Felipe

Botadura del petrolero Tarragona el 6 de abril de 1974

Botadura del petrolero Arteaga, contrucción nº 226 de Astano

Trabajadores de Astano trabajando en el izado de la mecha del timón de un petrolero ULCC

Intalando las gigantescas hélices de un superpetrolero del tipo Arteaga.

Castillo de proa de un VLCC con los soldadores trabajando contrarreloj para cumplir los plazos de entrega.

Estos barcos requerían gran cantidad de acero, y en consecuencia muchos soldadores, tuberos, montadores, etc

Estructuras de dimensiones mastodónticas y miles de toneladas de acero perfectamente elaboradas y ensambladas por los trabajadores de ASTANO

Por Alan Moore Seguir leyendo en El Estado Mental

Aquí Paco Fox: Vuelve Cava Baja, que metódica e inmisericordemente se está convirtiendo en la gran mina de música sórdida de ente bloj. Hoy con una música que todos amáis aunque no lo reconozcáis en discotecas hipsters y otros funerales: Siempre me han llamado la atención algunas cosas del verano. Por ejemplo, que nos asombremos del calor que hace, que nos sintamos sucios y apestosos al comenzar

In "An Edwardian Package Holiday," Kirsty Hooper mentions the role that "lively representations" in illustrated travel books such as Spain Revisited: A Summer Holiday in Galicia and A Corner of Spain played in promoting northwest Spain to British tourists (more here). Many other richly illustrated travel books from the same period are available online, perhaps most notably the "Beautiful England" and "Beautiful Ireland" series published by Blackie & Son and the wide variety of titles published by A & C Black.

Some titles in the "Beautiful England" series

The English Lakes (1910), described by A. G. Bradley and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Canterbury (1910), described by Canon Danks and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Windsor Castle (1910), described by Edward Thomas and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
The Heart of Wessex (1910), described by Sidney Heath and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Oxford (1910), described by F. D. How and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Norwich and the Broads (1910), described by Walter Jerrold and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
The Thames (1910), described by G. E. Mitton and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Cambridge (1911), described by Noel Barwell and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
York (1911), described by George Benson and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
The Isle of Wight (1911), described by G. E. Mitton and pictured by A. Heaton Cooper
The Peak District (1911), text by R. Murray Gilchrist and pictures by E. W. Haslehust
The Cornish Riviera (1911), described by Sidney Heath and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Dickens-Land (1911), described by J. A. Nicklin and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
The New Forest (1912), described by Elizabeth Godfrey and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Exeter (1912), described by Sidney Heath and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Hampton Court (1912), described by Walter Jerrold and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
The Dukeries (1913), described by R. Murray Gilchrist and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Dartmoor (1913), described by Arthur L. Salmon and pictured by E. W. Haslehust
Bath and Wells (1914), described by Arthur L. Salmon and pictured by E. W. Haslehust

Some titles in the "Beautiful Ireland" series

Ulster (1911), described by Stephen Gwynn and pictured by Alexander Williams
Leinster (1911), described by Stephen Gwynn and pictured by Alexander Williams
Connaught (1912), described by Stephen Gwynn and pictured by Alexander Williams
Killarney (1912), described by Mary Gorges and pictured by Francis S. Walker

Some titles published by A & C Black

Japan: A Record in Colour (1901) by Mortimer Menpes, transcribed by Dorothy Menpes
The Holy Land (1902), painted by John Fulleylove and described by John Kelman
The Durbar (1903) by Mortimer Menpes with text by Dorothy Menpes
Happy England (1903), as painted by Helen Allingham with memoir and descriptions by Marcus B. Huish
Oxford (1903), painted by John Fulleylove and described by Edward Thomas
The Alps (1904), painted by A. D. McCormick and described by W. Martin Conway
Edinburgh (1904), painted by John Fulleylove and described by Rosaline Masson
Familiar London (1904), painted by Rose Barton
Morocco (1904), painted by A. S. Forrest and described by S. L. Bensusan
Naples (1904), painted by Augustine Fitzgerald and described by Sybil Fitzgerald
The New Forest (1904) by Mrs. Willingham Rawnsley
Venice (1904) by Mortimer Menpes with text by Dorothy Menpes
Yorkshire: Coast and Moorland Scenes (1904), painted and described by Gordon Home
Abbotsford (1905), painted by William Smith, Jr., and described by W. S. Crockett
Beautiful Wales (1905), painted by Robert Fowler and described by Edward Thomas
Burma (1905), painted and described by R. Talbot Kelly
Florence and Some Tuscan Cities (1905), painted by Colonel R. C. Goff and described by Clarissa Goff
India (1905) by Mortimer Menpes with text by Flora Annie Steel
Norway (1905) by Nico Jungman with text by Beatrix Jungman
Nuremberg (1905), painted by Arthur G. Bell and described by Mrs. Arthur G. Bell
Rome (1905), painted by Alberto Pisa and described by M. A. R. Tuker and Hope Malleson
Tibet & Nepal (1905), painted and described by A. Henry Savage Landor
The West Indies (1905), painted by A. S. Forrest and described by John Henderson
Bruges and West Flanders (1906), painted by Amedée Forestier and described by G. W. T. Omond
Egypt (1906), painted and described by R. Talbot Kelly
Greece (1906), painted by John Fulleylove and described by the Rev. J. A. M'Clymont
North Devon (1906) by F. J. Snell
Northern Spain (1906), painted and described by Edgar T. A. Wigram
Surrey (1906), painted by Sutton Palmer and described by A. R. Hope Moncrieff
Sussex (1906), painted by Wilfrid Ball
The Thames (1906) by Mortimer Menpes with text by G. E. Mitton
Wessex (1906), painted by Walter Tyndale and described by Clive Holland
Westminster Abbey (1906), painted by John Fulleylove and described by Mrs. A. Murray Smith
Yorkshire Dales and Fells (1906), painted and described by Gordon Home
Cambridge (1907), painted by William Matthison and described by M. A. R. Tuker
Canada (1907), painted by T. Mower Martin and described by Wilfred Campbell
Canterbury (1907), painted by W. Biscombe Gardner and described by W. Teignmouth Shore
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1907), painted by W. Smith, Jr., and described by A. R. Hope Moncrieff
Ireland (1907), painted by Francis S. Walker and described by Frank Mathew
Lamia's Winter-Quarters (1907) by Alfred Austin with illustrations by George S. Elgood
Middlesex (1907), painted by John Fulleylove and described by A. R. Hope Moncrieff
The Riviera (1907), painted and described by William Scott
The English Lakes (1908), painted by A. Heaton Cooper and described by Wm. T. Palmer
The Flowers and Gardens of Japan (1908), painted by Ella du Cane and described by Florence du Cane
Isle of Wight (1908), painted by A. Heaton Cooper and described by A. R. Hope Moncrieff
Southern Spain (1908), painted by Trevor Haddon and described by A. F. Calvert
Windsor (1908), painted by George M. Henton and described by Sir Richard Rivington Holmes
China (1909) by Mortimer Menpes with text by Sir Henry Arthur Blake
Eton (1909), painted by E. D. Brinton and described by Christopher Stone
Paris (1909) by Mortimer Menpes with text by Dorothy Menpes
India (1910) by John Finnemore with illustrations by Mortimer Menpes
Malta (1910), painted by Vittorio Boron and described by Frederick W. Ryan
Kashmir (1911), painted by Major E. Molyneux and described by Sir Francis Younghusband
Bonnie Scotland (1912), painted by Sutton Palmer and described by A. R. Hope Moncrieff
Brittany (1912) by Mortimer Menpes with text by Dorothy Menpes
The Banks of the Nile (1913), painted by Ella du Cane and described by John A. Todd
Holland (1913) by Beatrix Jungman with illustrations by Nico Jungman

You've seen enough vampire movies to know that there's something very arousing about the intersection of pleasure and pain. The rise of dubious consent erotica online, along with the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon, has inspired college girls and homemakers alike to shop for ankle straps and ball gags. It's pretty clear that rough sex is something a lot of us enjoy, and many more are curious about. But rough sex not only requires a fair amount of athleticism, it also requires negotiation. "What a lot of people think about rough sex are things like spitting, hair pulling, face slapping, choking. Every one of those is what I like to call the cilantro of sex," says Danarama, the dean of Kink University, the education wing of the infamous porn site Kink.com. "You either love it, or you hate it. And nobody likes just a little bit of spitting on the face."

Read More: Dominatrixes Share the Most Annoying Things Their Slaves Do

We sat down with Danarama—a BDSM, kink, rope, and rough-sex expert—to talk about the best way to get your partner to leave the sort of bruises you can brag about, inventive uses for pillowcases, and how objectification can be hot.

BROADLY: When people say they like "rough sex," what do you take that to mean?
Danarama: When you look at the statistics, one-third of people note that rough sex is their preferred mode. Is that because all these people want to get raped? No. Rough sex is not about rape. Rough sex is about consensual sex with abandon, the feeling that your partner is so overwhelmed with passion that they just want to really pounce on you. Sometimes people just want to be taken with high-exposure positions.

What are high-exposure positions?
Taking standard-issue missionary and doggy-style positions, and changing them up in a way that makes the person feel much more open and vulnerable and accessible. It's the difference between lying on your back and then being held down on your back with your legs, with your ankles, held wide. Taking the missionary position, and making it wider and more open, makes people feel more vulnerable. It's much more heightened, much more exciting, and feels a lot rougher even when it isn't physically rougher.

Is there a more high-exposure position than doggy style?
Something you can do to increase the vulnerability and power of the doggy-style position is if the person on their knees crosses their hands behind their back. And the person behind them grabs their wrists while they have sex. That way, the person on their knees is in a near total submission position while the other person has more physical leverage by pushing and pulling on the wrists.

What about props? What if leather and paddles aren't your thing?
A good and easy restraint to start with is a pillowcase. You don't even need to leave the bed or reach over your partner to pull it out of the drawer. You can tie their wrists together, or, a creative use, is for them to put their arms behind their back; slip the pillow case on so their hands are at the bottom of the case, and have them lie on their back. That way, their body weight and the case act as restraint.

Being a sexual object is fun because you don't have to work at it. You don't have to worry about how you look. You don't have to make a decision. Objectification takes out the guesswork.

How do you engage with a partner about rough sex if you're interested but don't know how to approach the topic?
Well, the first thing is to know your limits and know about safety. You have to know, and be in agreement on, what those things are that you like, and what things your partner can do. Second, you have to have an awareness of safety. If you're a young person, and you realize, Hey, I have this fantasy of getting choked out, don't just say this to a stranger. Literally, that is how people get killed. Know the safety of it and kind of coach them along.

Image by Mosuno via Stocksy

OK, let's role-play; pretend you're me, and I'll be a strapping lover.
OK, so you're going to want to suggest things in a positive way. Like, "You know what I think would be great? I think I would love it if you just took your hand and put it over my mouth while you're fucking me, and if it gets too much, I'll just shake my head no."

Or something like, "Oh, I would love it if you just grabbed my hair and pushed me down into the bed. Spit on me, baby, spit on my face. I think that's so hot."

Also, whenever things do start to get rough, and you're enjoying it, say things like, "What you're doing is great." You make their job easier by telling them what you like and telling them they're hot. Positively reinforce what you like through compliments, rather than saying what don't like, which is a boner killer, regardless of your gender.

I would say that one of the most appealing aspects of rough sex is objectification. Just feeling like you're a sex object ready to be used. Why do you think it's so hot?
Well, for one, it's the freedom to realize that if you're an object, you don't have to work at it. You don't have to worry about how you look. You don't have to make a decision. Objectification takes out the guesswork. And another nice thing about objectification is the fact that it's a type of worship to have someone dress you and pose you. It's, these are things that were only done in the most elite circles. That's what goddesses, icons, political leaders enjoy. The reason women's fashion buttons are on the other side of men's is because in Victorian society, the wealthiest elite had a dresser to button them. It's much sexier to have someone dress you and do stuff for you and do stuff with you than it is to have to do it yourself.

The nature of humanity is to objectify things; we're pretty simpleminded creatures, and we like to categorize things, and that's very depersonalizing—dehumanizing—but it's one of the things BDSM and rough sex lets you do. It lets you experience things that you may have had an interest in—or you may have felt shame about, or you may have had a very horrible, traumatic experience with—and relive it in an environment that is done with consent, with a partner that loves you. It can transcend that into a more positive experience. Because you can say a safe word, even if you want to say no. You can work through that. And they won't stop until you say the safe word you've agreed on.

On Wednesday morning, people across the country woke up, opened their laptops and phones, and watched the police killing of Alton Sterling. That evening, maybe while eating dinner, we watched Philando Castile bleed out after a Minnesota cop shot him in his car. Last night, we were stunned by videos from the horrific attack on police at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas.

It's a strange thing, being able to watch death like that. Few people were directly affected by these events; few can understand what it's like when a loved one is shot in the street, or during a routine traffic stop, or while doing their job trying to keep others safe. Yet these tragedies feel fresh and immediate. The updates stream in on Twitter or Facebook, the videos are passed around, we learn the terrible individual details that always come at times like these. The way Castile's fiancée calmly narrates what just happened while he dies next to her. The image of the cop pulling his gun out of the holster seconds before Sterling is killed. The split-second after the first shots in Dallas when terror ripples through the crowd.

Sometimes, especially in the case of police shootings, videos can be important pieces of evidence, galvanizing the public to take action and potentially even helping prosecutors punish killers. But after a week of violence being shared and re-shared everywhere, a numbness can settle in. What is the point of posting a video of a cop being killed in cold blood in Dallas? Is posting graphic videos of deaths a necessary part of covering the news, or a cheap way to attract eyeballs? When does outrage become ordinary, and unproductive, rage?

The Thursday morning edition of the New York Daily News didn't hold back, splashing a blown-up image of Sterling's bloodied body on the cover. "HIS HANDS WERE EMPTY" screamed the headline—in other words, he didn't have a gun, and the cops' actions were therefore inexcusable. The Daily News has been consistent for years in its crusading coverage of both police brutality and gun violence (see the cover it was planning to run on Friday before news from Dallas broke), and it doesn't shy away from uncomfortable images it believes are in service of that coverage. Last year, when a gunman filmed himself killing reporters in Virginia, the Daily News ran screenshots from the video on its cover, and was widely criticized on social media. This week, it was hit with some of the same criticisms—that such images are insensitive, traumatizing to the families of victims, and merely a way to sell papers.

Daily News editor in chief Jim Rich defended the cover on Twitter, at one point writing, "This is the horrific reality of what cops continue to do with impunity. People need to see the truth. You should be offended." This argument is subtler than anything that can be bannered on a tabloid cover: When does truth trump sensitivity? When should you avoid calling attention to a powerful image on the grounds that it may disturb people? (Journalists' traditional answers to those questions are always and never, respectively.)

The staff at the News surely give careful consideration to every cover they print. Social media is a different beast entirely, and in the aftermath of Dallas the noise threatened to obscure the events on the ground. On Thursday night, the Dallas Police Department's Twitter account posted a photo of a black man with a gun walking in the protest, identifying him as a suspect; in fact, he had nothing to do with the attack, though he's now reportedly receiving death threats.

Then there were the run-of-the-mill shards of hate and ignorance, like the former GOP congressman who tweeted, then deleted, a statement about how "real America" was coming after "black lives matter punks" and Barack Obama. Or the conservative law-and-order Milwaukee sheriff blaming Obama for "pouring gas on the situation." A Trump campaign official took to Facebook to denounce Hillary Clinton "for essentially encouraging the murder of these police officers tonight." A distillation of the worst response to the week's killings could be found on the Friday cover of the right-wing competition of the Daily News, the New York Post: "CIVIL WAR."

Anger, as one famous study showed, is the emotion that spreads the fastest online, but fear can't be far behind on that list. And the membrane between online and offline lives seems to grow thinner by the day. The US is a violent place, a truth most Americans have always understood in the abstract, but that violence seems so much closer when you can find it scrolling through Facebook. When it was announced the US Capitol had gone on lockdown after cops spotted an object that looked like a gun in a backpack, it seemed like the entire country was getting jumpy, bracing itself for the next blow.

Social media magnifies outrage, it inflicts wounds on us, it makes us anxious and angry at injustice. It hardly ever provides a way to heal. Pain is viral; the fact that most people everywhere hate all kinds of killing is usually underreported. This likely won't be the last week when it feels like America is awash in murder. You and I won't be able to do anything to stop that. What we can do is, occasionally, turn away from the fear that flashes across our screens. Not out of a sense of complacency or callousness, but in order to keep our sense of perspective. The sort of rage the Post and others are peddling will not make us any safer. Arguments on Facebook are not productive forms of activism. It's better to wait for accurate news than to tweet blindly about events far away from you.

The Dallas police force, under Chief David Brown, has reduced excessive force complaints and improved community relations thanks to reforms of the sort that activists often suggest. There are policies that could reduce gun violence, if Congress finally acquires the political will to do so. Black Lives Matter protesters, like the ones marching in Dallas, have turned police brutality into a national issue. It's possible that things are getting better, however slowly. That's important to remember on days like this.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

The thing no one warns you about when you decide to become a Pokémon trainer is the humidity. It's hot and muggy on my first day hunting down Pikachus and Geodudes in Brooklyn, and my already clammy hands are getting even sweatier from the heat of my phone—Pokémon Go runs hot.

For the uninitiated, Pokémon Go is a game for iOS and Android that uses real GPS data to turn your surroundings into a game world, allowing you to walk around your neighborhood while collecting items, capturing creatures, and doing battle at designated "Pokémon Gyms." It's a solid pitch, but with clouds gathering overhead, I'm more worried about the impending rain than I am about catching them all. Especially since I can't even connect to the game's server.

When Nintendo first started promoting Pokémon Go last fall I was curious, if a little skeptical. The game's announcement trailer is every school-yard and water-cooler "What if there was a game where..." conversation turned into high-quality CG. Just watch:

It's nostalgia given motion. It's a promise of the imaginary breaking into the real world and bringing us all closer together along the way. Who wouldn't want to be part of that? The reality of Pokémon Go is much less exciting. The imaginary doesn't pierce into the real world so much as it butts up against the mundane constraints of design and technology.

Made by Niantic and the Pokémon Company (which is partially owned by Nintendo), Pokémon Go simplifies the complex rules of the traditional Pokémon series and instead emphasizes exploring your real life surroundings. As you wander around, you'll find various Pokémon in the world, tap on them, and then use the simple touch interface to throw a poké ball at them—if you toss it right (and if you manage to stay connected to the server) you'll add them to your collection. Pokémon Go can also use your phone's camera to display all of this with rudimentary (but still sometimes impressive) augmented reality. As I walked along the street, I was really hoping to catch this little Doduo...

Unfortunately, the game crashed. My entire first day with Pokémon Go was dominated by technical issues: The game locks up, struggles to connect (or stay connected) to the servers, its GPS fails to update accurately, items vanish or fail to work as they should, and it crashes again and again. It's a mess.

Worse, Pokémon Go just might not be that good even without the technical problems. As in Ingress, Niantic's previous GPS-driven game, Pokémon Go uses local landmarks like murals, churches, and monuments as in-game destinations. Some of these destinations give you items (more poké balls, healing items for your pokemon, etc.) and others are gyms where you can do asynchronous battle with rival players. Every player aligns themselves to one of three teams, each trying to take over the other's gyms while building up the defenses of their own. Though the early game is mostly about walking around, stumbling into new pokemon, and building up your collection, it seems like the long-term focus of Pokémon Go will be these gym battles.

The bad news is that those battles are pretty disappointing. Imagine a really imprecise version of Punch-Out!! or Infinity Blade. You swipe left and right to dodge incoming attacks, tap to fire off your own, and hold down on the screen to launch a special attack once you've charged it up. Pokémon Go does include the familiar elemental resistance system, but all the fights I've been in so far haven't benefited from it. It never feels like more than wild gesturing and hoping that the commands I enter actually send through to the server.

All of this leads to a stuttering rhythm of play that goes against everything that has made Pokémon so great over the years. A good Pokémon game entices you to stay awake in bed just so you can get a taste what the next area holds. You slide effortlessly from one battle to another, trying out new pokémon and formulating strategic plans. Tension peaks at key battles, and then smooths out once you're through it. Pokémon Go doesn't have any of this flow. Instead, it moves in fits and starts that match its choppy interface.

So, you connect and head to one landmark, you wait for it to load in. It fails to load in, but hey, there's a Pidgey! You click on the Pidgey, the game crashes. When you boot it back up, the Pidgey is gone. You start to walk a bit further but in game but you've been locked in place, so you stand around and wait for it to catch up. You're stationary and locked to your phone in a way that makes you look like a tourist in your own neighborhood. There's no flow here, no rhythm to disappear into.

The strangest thing is none of that may matter. Because it's Pokémon and it's communal and every now and then you turn the corner and see a man slouching over a mailbox and there at his feet is an Ekans and you think hah, yea, okay, this works. Because on the way to work this morning, my bus route led me past a Magmar—a weird sort of lava duck pokémon—and when I wasn't quick enough to capture it, I felt a sharp sense of loss. Because I've been thinking about making a trip to the river tomorrow, just so I can maybe find some more water-type pokémon.

It isn't just me, either. So many people have started conversations with me about Pokémon Go today. People who don't game even—coworkers, old friends, lapsed Pokémon fans who have suddenly remembered this thing they once loved, and love the novelty of seeing it drip into our world again.

On my way home last night, after the heat had broken, I saw Pokémon fans crossing the streets, heads down, illuminated and consumed by the game's glow. I saw one guy sitting on the subway launching the game over and over—I'd guess it was crashing on him, too. I saw a group of four kids gathered around the darkened entrance of an old karaoke place that had been designated as a gym. They were grinning and shouting and joking. One of them had been left behind as the others moved on—more connection trouble most likely but he was committed to standing in place and staring at his phone. It was when they finally all circled back around, phones in hand, that I knew they were all playing.

I approached them coyly—they were total strangers—but I barely got a word out.

"Are you play-"

"Yeah, haha, yeah." Huge grins.

They'd never played a game like this, they told me. They liked that they got to hang out together and go to weird places. They liked that it was Pokémon. Suddenly, I didn't really mind the crashes or the poor progression mechanics or the lackluster battles. Suddenly, I wanted to call my friends up and go for a walk.

I wanted to bury those guys in questions, but they were anxious to keep moving—there were more Pokémon gyms to hit and it was getting late. But before they left, they did tell me that the technical problems that were vexing me and so many others didn't bother them at all. The servers being broken must just mean that lots of people were enjoying the game, they said, and that meant that Niantic and the Pokémon Company would turn this very basic game into something special.

Given the way this thing has launched, I'm a little skeptical. But I hope they're right.

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James Young Simpson didn’t invent chloroform, but he championed its use as a surgical anesthetic. He opened a container of it during a meeting of physicians in 1847 and laughed at the giggling, snoring results. Chloroform was better than the ether then in use, as ether was very flammable and often left the patient thrashing about in their sleep. But any anesthetic was suspicious, because people were afraid of not waking up afterward. And no one really understood how it worked.    

More questions about chloroform arose, mostly because the substance was ill-understood: some, for example, believed it could be strictly a respiratory depressant. But such concerns were set aside for the demand created by the Civil War, which required a fast-acting anesthetic on the battlefield. Of the 80,000 operations surveyed by Union physicians, all but 254 used anesthetic of some kind — usually chloroform, and sometimes a mixture of ether and chloroform to help mitigate the risks of either.

Any fears about induced sleep were quickly mitigated by the searing pain of a shrapnel-fed leg. The patient would inhale and the vapor would first numb the senses. Relaxation would set in, followed by a feeling of impairment. The patient would cease to move, to feel and to have any awareness of the scalpels digging into their flesh. In short, it was just what they needed.

Occasional cardiac death aside, chloroform was a wonder drug. And any lingering doubts the general public had about its administration ended in 1853, when Queen Victoria gave birth without feeling a thing.

As chloroform grew in popularity for surgery, it was also used for entertainment at parties and for private highs. But all it took was for one person to accuse a doctor of impropriety while a victim was unconscious from chloroform, and the substance gained a reputation as a crime tool. Read about chloroform during its heyday at Van Winkle’s. -via Digg

The great grudge match of bread spreads—butter vs. margarine—has a new champion. After several decades of inexplicable margarine-dominance, the trend has finally flipped in butter’s favor.

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Being able to play music is a gift, but learning to play an instrument is morass of frustration—especially teaching yourself the guitar. Hands have to be bent in uncomfortable positions, uncalloused fingers get sore, and it becomes clear that human extremities innately possess the coordination of a newborn deer that’s been grazing in a field of ketamine. Sucks to suck, and learning is for chumps.

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People all over have been trying to enjoy the new Pokémon Go app, which released this week to so much fanfare that it’s experiencing massive server overload . The hype was so real that people were passing around APK files so that people outside the countries where it’s available could side-load it on Android, something I saw in my own friend groups.

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The 2015 Dice Tower Awards winners were announced at Dice Tower Con last night. The Dice Tower Awards nominees were announced earlier

Let’s have a moment of silence to honor all the poor souls trapped in the shopping hell.

(source)

Faltan siete días para que el nieto mayor del rey Juan Carlos pueda conducir su propio coche, votar o firmar un contrato sin consentimiento paterno. Dentro de una semana Felipe Juan Froilán de todos los Santos -'Pipe' para su familia y amigos, Froilán para todos los demás- será mayor de edad.

clown penis originally appeared on MyConfinedSpace NSFW on July 8, 2016.

Library Pussy originally appeared on MyConfinedSpace NSFW on July 9, 2016.

Police determined that the body was fresh, having been in the river for less than 24 hours.

The best estimates available suggest that more than 250,000 people have died as a result of George W. Bush and Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. A newly released investigative report from the UK government suggests that intelligence officials knew ahead of time that the war would cause massive instability and societal collapse and make the problem of terrorism worse — and that Blair and Bush went ahead with the effort anyway.

The correct response to this situation is to despair at the fact that the US and UK governments created such a horrific human tragedy for no good reason at all. However, partisan grudgefests run deep, and some on the right have argued that the UK’s Chilcot report proves the real dastardly actors are liberals who accused Bush and Blair not just of relying on faulty intelligence suggesting Iraq had WMDs but of lying about the intelligence they did have.

To some extent, this is beside the point; even if they had been totally cautious and careful in characterizing the intelligence, the war still would’ve been a catastrophic mistake that took an immense human toll. But the truth also matters, and the truth is that there were numerous occasions when Bush and his advisers made statements that intelligence agencies knew to be false, both about WMDs and about Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent links to al-Qaeda. The term commonly used for making statements that one knows to be false is "lying."

Mother Jones’s David Corn has been excellent about chronicling specific examples over the years. Here are just a few:

• In October 2002, Bush said that Saddam Hussein had a "massive stockpile" of biological weapons. But as CIA Director George Tenet noted in early 2004, the CIA had informed policymakers it had "no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons agent or stockpiles at Baghdad's disposal." The "massive stockpile" was just literally made up.
• In December 2002, Bush declared, "We do not know whether or not [Iraq] has a nuclear weapon." That was not what the National Intelligence Estimate said. As Tenet would later testify, "We said that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009." Bush did know whether or not Iraq had a nuclear weapon — and lied and said he didn’t know to hype the threat.
• On CNN in September 2002, Condoleezza Rice claimed that aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." This was precisely the opposite of what nuclear experts at the Energy Department were saying; they argue that not only was it very possible the tubes were for nonnuclear purposes but that it was very likely they were too. Even more dire assessments about the tubes from other agencies were exaggerated by administration officials — and in any case, the claim that they’re "only really suited" for nuclear weapons is just false.
• On numerous occasions, Dick Cheney cited a report that 9/11 conspirator Mohammed Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer. He said this after the CIA and FBI concluded that this meeting never took place.
• More generally on the question of Iraq and al-Qaeda, on September 18, 2001, Rice received a memo summarizing intelligence on the relationship, which concluded there was little evidence of links. Nonetheless Bush continued to claim that Hussein was "a threat because he’s dealing with al-Qaeda" more than a year later.
• In August 2002, Dick Cheney declared, "Simply stated, there's no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." But as Corn notes, at that time there was "no confirmed intelligence at this point establishing that Saddam had revived a major WMD operation." Gen. Anthony Zinni, who had heard the same intelligence and attended Cheney’s speech, would later say in a documentary, "It was a total shock. I couldn't believe the vice president was saying this, you know? In doing work with the CIA on Iraq WMD, through all the briefings I heard at Langley, I never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program."

The Bush administration on numerous occasions exaggerated or outright fabricated conclusions from intelligence in its public statements. Bush really did lie, and people really did die as a result of the war those lies were meant to build a case for. Those are the facts.

The failure of Iraq was not merely a case of well-meaning but incompetent policymakers rushing into what they should’ve known would be a disaster. It’s the story of those policymakers repeatedly misleading the public about why, exactly, the war started.

Originally created as an experimental 1998 lo-fi solo project between her tenures in Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, The Julie Ruin is the brainchild of singer, songwriter, and feminist punk icon Kathleen Hanna. After re-launching the venture as a band in 2010, Hanna and her co-conspirators delivered their brash group debut, Run Fast, in 2013. […]

Something to take one's mind off this hard month in a hard summer in a hard year.

Capybaras previously

How Africa was divided between the European powers (1884).

By CRACKED Readers  Published: July 09th, 2016