A family member and I had a discussion about trump “joking” about foreign countries investigating Americans. *Clearly* he was just kidding. He makes jokes all the time.
I guess I have totally missed the fact that we have a comedian-in-chief. I mentioned this phone call and immediately was hit with “there was no quid pro quo” so it’s fine.
I tried to point out that when President Zelensky mentioned acquiring more Javelins, Trump’s very next sentence was, “I would like you to do us a favor, though.” How is that not a quid pro quo?
The answer was that that was clearly not what the transcript said. I don’t know how you reason with people that refuse to accept agreed-upon facts.
Russian cursive looks like Donald Trump’s signature
Image cropped for clarity from the original, where there is a little bit of relevant commentary about why this happens and how someone can use context to read it. Readers here may be able to offer additional insights.
Addendum: Several good comments from readers, and a hat tip to Aleksejs for providing this dissection of the cursive "chinchilla":
The United States has a total of 61 national parks, many of which we can all name just off the top of our heads: Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, Zion, Joshua Tree, and I’m sure a lot of others people will be sure to tell me I forgot in the comments. But today I want to focus on a park that gets a little less attention than the rest, probably because it’s a lot farther away. Katmai National Park is a place I have never heard of until today, maybe because I’m Canadian, possibly because I’m just late to the party, maybe a little bit of column A and column B. Katmai is located in the great state of Alaska, and it is GORGEOUS.
All of the national parks are amazing in their own way and I don’t think it’s fair to rank them or pick favorites, but with that said, Katmai is now definitely my favorite and I would argue the number one park in all of the United States — for one very good reason.
Each year, they hold a FAT BEAR CONTEST.
Yeah. One more time — Katmai National Park holds annual
The premise is very simple. The bears in the park are numbered, named, and monitored by parks employees. Each year when they wake up from hibernation they are understandably quite thin and small (for bears, that is), and each autumn when they’re getting ready to hibernate again they are (hopefully) giant fluffy chonks. The bears are photographed in the summer and in the autumn, the before and after photos are compared and posted online by the Katmai Parks social media accounts, and the people vote on who is the best fat bear.
She definitely deserved to take home the W. In my opinion though, they’re all winners.
NOTES FROM SLOANE
Fat bears can only happen in healthy ecosystems with lots of food and clean water, so to help keep these areas and the environment protected for bears and everything else that lives on this earth (like humans), donate to the National Parks Service or other organizations like The Conservation Fund.
These are adorable, but you have to be a crazy person to put that much effort into dinner rolls.
The holidays are almost here, which means “show-off” baking season is almost here, and these pumpkin-shaped dinner rolls are just the thing to impress your guests, and more importantly, drive your culinary rivals mad with envy. Sure these take about 20 minutes longer to make than your already perfectly fine dinner rolls, but that’s nothing when you consider all the compliments that will be coming your way.
This very Instagram-friendly roll is the perfect thing to bring to that holiday gathering, and can be made using your favorite dinner roll recipe. The key here is well-oiled string, and being careful not to tie it too tightly. If the string gets embedded too deeply into the dough, it will tear the roll when you try to remove it, and there’s nothing that stops something from being cute, quite like a jagged tear.
By the way, if you don’t feel like tying all those knots, you can try and do this with one long piece of string, winding it around the dough ball, as you turn it, but I find that method harder, and less successful. Faster yes, but not as visually appealing once baked.
If you do a video search for this type of roll, you’ll also see people simply cutting slashes around the outside, which sort of works, but it just doesn’t come out as adorable. But, regardless of which roll recipe, or shaping method you use, I really do hope you give these pumpkin-shaped dinner rolls a try soon. Enjoy!
Ingredients for 12 “Pumpkin” Dinner Rolls: (be sure to save a few tablespoons of dough for the stems)
1 cup warm milk
1 package dry active yeast
1 or 2 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons melted butter
3 cups flour, plus more for kneading
1 teaspoon fine salt
kitchen string
vegetable oil for strings
- Bake at 375 F. for 20-25 minutes
- Feel free to give these an egg wash before baking if you want a shinier look.
I think the original comment was badly phrased; presumably he meant that the court decision would subtract billions in costs from employers' bottom lines (but the counterargument still stands)/
Educated people know what's going to happen, but it's still interesting to see in real life. If you're in a hurry, you can start at about the 2:20 mark.
I almost wish I had legal troubles so I could have him on retainer
Stray cats are extremely common across the world, so they’re definitely not an unexpected sight. However there are a few places you wouldn’t expect to see them. Like behind the counter at a bank, or hanging out at a national law institution.
The Order of Attorneys of Brazil (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil) is to Brazil what the Bar Association is to America. So to say that its headquarters, located in the capital city of Brasília, is a pretty importantbuilding for the nation would be an understatement. A lot of people go through those doors each day, as well as one cat.
Leon (LEON!! MY HEART) was a stray who lived on the streets of Brasília, until one day during a particularly bad rainstorm he managed to find his way into the OAB building. The employees — who are certified angels — decided to unofficially adopt Leon, and let him hang out around the OAB lobby and reception area. Unfortunately some people started to complain, and I’m guessing they also hate things like rainbows or the sound of birds outside their window in the morning and probably didn’t even cry once during the movie Up, but the staff found a solution that is lawyer-level smart and indisputable:
So Leon is now, ahem, DOCTOR LEON, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
Not only can he freely roam the OAB building, he has the most amazing Instagram page full of adorable photos — with some surprisingly profound captions???
This is the most wholesome thing I’ve ever seen in my goddamn life
Deciding to go into art of any kind is definitely one of the more difficult paths to take in life, particularly fine arts like painting. That’s why phrases like “an artist is never truly appreciate in their day” and clichés like the “starving artist” exist — because, well, there’s truth to them. As is the case with a lot of commissioned-based work, painting or illustrating can make for more stable hobbies than careers, unless of course you have more than one source of income, or if you’re a little pet rat and you don’t actually need any source of income because, as I said, you’re a rat.
Amalie Markota Andersen is an animation and digital arts student in Askim, Norway, and Darius is her pet rat, who is also an artist — thanks to Amalie.
“I got a non-toxic watercolor set, dipped his lil hands and feet in it and just let him walk back and forth on the paper until it started to look like something,” Amalie told Insider
Yep, buckle up folks, we’re going on a feels-trip:
Darius paints pictures with his tiny little feetsies.
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Amalie estimated that each painting took him about ten minutes, which is pretty impressive when you compare that to how painstakingly long other masterpieces took. Yeah, I said masterpieces, because LOOK.
THIS IS A MASTERPIECE
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LOOK AT HOW PROUD HE IS OF HIS WORK!!!
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LOOK AT HIS LITTLE
T O E S
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My heart is going to explode
After Amalie posted photos of this incredibly brilliant boy and his work it didn’t take long until Darius actually had commissions coming in, which is exactly what he deserved because JUST LOOK AT THAT TALENT. Now, obviously the money from these commissions went to Amalie because Darius is a rat and generally speaking rats do not have bank accounts, but the money he earned went towards literally the best possible thing:
A little harness so that he could explore the outdoors!!!!
Courtesy of Amalie Markota Andersen/Insider
This is so fucking CUTE I am LOSING my SHIT. I’m gonna throw something. I will literally trash this whole office because this is so adorable and I CANNOT HANDLE IT
Amalie adopted Darius in 2017 and nobody knew how old he was then but she assumed he was already a little old man, and unfortunately he passed away earlier in 2019. (I told you this was a feels-trip.) But Amalie and we can all take solace in the fact that he had an extremely rich life full of outdoor adventures and enjoying painting, his art is still out there somewhere in circulation, and hopefully his pieces will be worth millions someday.
This is just ridiculous at this point. This is just the latest in a series of deaths at this skydiving business. Thursday was VERY windy and I cannot believe that anyone was allowed to skydive in those conditions.
Why has this place not been shut down?
A skydiver was killed Thursday after she strayed off course and hit a big rig on southbound Highway 99 in the Lodi area, authorities said.
Why the fuck did he care if she was playing with her hair? I use to play with my hair in class when I was concentrating.
In fact, my 5th grade teacher recognized me at the mall when I was 20 because I was playing with my hair the same way I would in her class a decade earlier.
She never cut off a chunk of my hair.
"He threatened her and said, 'Well, if you don’t stop playing with your hair, I’m going to cut your hair off.' And she was like, 'No you can't do that.' He said, 'Oh yeah? Watch me,'” the girl's mother said.
An explosion at Russia’s State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology (Vector) resulted in a fire, glass blown out throughout the building, and one worker suffering third degree burns on Monday, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Vector is one of the only two places in the world where live smallpox virus samples are officially stored, as well as retains stocks of other deadly pathogens including the Ebola virus and anthrax spores.
If you’ve ever had to go on a diet you can attest to how frustrating it can be. Eating is a habit, and just like trying to change any habit, changing up your diet is no easy task and at some point or another it’s sure to cause some grumblings and complaints. And humans aren’t the only ones who feel this way! If you think YOU have a hard time cutting back on the sweets or late night snacking, take a look at any pet who’s been put on a vet recommended diet and I’m sure you’ll feel at least a little bit better about yourself.
Like this French bulldog, named Cashew, who is definitely a bit of a chonkster, and whose human mom is trying to fix that.
The video starts with Cashew staring into his empty dish in clear disbelief that there is no more kibble, and after a few moments of pondering why the food is gone, he gives some primo doggy side eye and a few annoyed little grunts, as if to say, “hello, this is empty, please address this.”
His owner then has to break the tragic news that he had indeed finished his breakfast, and that’s all there is.
And Cashew quickly lets everyone know just how he feels about that.
>>> Kirkland said Kaia was acting out in class, a side effect due to a lack of sleep because of a medical condition.
"So he says ‘What medical condition?' I said ‘You know she has a sleep disorder, sleep apnea,' and he says, 'Well, I have sleep apnea, and I don't behave like that."
You’re also not 6 years old.
Officials said the arrest of any person under the age of 12 requires the approval of a watch commander, which the officer did not obtain.
If you haven’t started watching NBC’s The Good Place yet you seriously need to. But be warned, there is good news and bad news. The good news is this show is so, SO much fun, and you can catch up on the previous three seasons on Netflix before the fourth hits TV at the end of the month. The bad news is, season four is going to be the last season, which almost seems like a cruel, Bad Place-esque kind of punishment.
However!
There is still some more good news.
NBC and the writers of The Good Place are giving all of us a little gift in order to help ease the pain of its impending conclusion, in the form of a miniseries.
If you haven’t finished season three yet I suggest you STOP READING NOW, for here be spoilers. Ye have been warned.
Season three ends with The Judge agreeing to let Michael build a new neighborhood where humans have a chance to change and redeem themselves, a sort of experimental middle ground between The Good Place and The Bad Place. The thing is, though, that Shawn and the demons get to decide which humans will get to go to The Middle Place to take part in this cosmic experiment.
The miniseries, called The Selection, follows Shawn and said demons as they hammer out those details. It’s essentially a workplace comedy, but, you know, in Hell.
And every episode is available to watch on the NBC app right now.
I’ve never claimed to be a fashion expert, in fact, quite the contrary. Every time I write about clothing whether it’s variations of Crocs or denim underwear I make a point of reminding you all that I definitely do not have fashion sense, but with that said, I also know a crime when I see one. We’ve seen a lot of denim related fiascos in recent years: Jorts, jeggings, the aforementioned jean underwear, otherwise known as... janties. *Shudder*
I thought that that had to be as worse as it got, how many horrifying things could jeans possibly be turned into, but as we’ve learned by now, things can always get worse. And unfortunately, the culprit this time is jeans — just jeans. Denim pants. The one thing we should all be able to trust.
BUT NO MORE.
Straight leg and wide leg have come together to create this, in a most unholy union.
Asymmetrical jeans.
Neiman Marcus
WHY. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.
Nothing is sacred.
And as if this wasn’t appalling enough already, you might want to sit down while I tell you how much these bad boys go for:
$462.00
FOUR HUNDRED. AND SIXTY TWO DOLLARS.
I guess if you can afford to drop a casual half-k on a pair of JEANS then regular laws don’t apply to you and you can just wear whatever the hell you want, like some kind of fashion anarchist. If this is you, you can buy them here. Do what you will, buy them if you want, but just know that I’m going to seriously, seriously judge you for it.
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The holidays are almost here, which means “show-off” baking season is almost here, and these pumpkin-shaped dinner rolls are just the thing to impress your guests, and more importantly, drive your culinary rivals mad with envy. Sure these take about 20 minutes longer to make than your already perfectly fine dinner rolls, but that’s nothing when you consider all the compliments that will be coming your way. 
By the way, if you don’t feel like tying all those knots, you can try and do this with one long piece of string, winding it around the dough ball, as you turn it, but I find that method harder, and less successful. Faster yes, but not as visually appealing once baked. 
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Courtesy of Amalie Markota Andersen/Insider
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Neiman Marcus