SpinnyNuNu

This Christian cop thinks he has a religious right to treat women unfairly.

President Donald Trump says he's "very strongly" considering commuting the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving a 14-year prison term on multiple federal corruption convictions.

"Had I been going just a little bit faster, it would have hit me instead. But for me to be able to just walk away from it pretty much unscathed is incredible," he said.

Which Bible verse condones their actions?

Here's how it works: The 11-year-old is challenging each person in El Paso to do 22 good deeds for others --- one for each of the victims shot and killed when a white supremacist began firing Saturday inside a Walmart.

"We don't like their message of turning this country into a socialist country," the gun shop owner said.

"I'm 37 and it has been in my freezer for 37 years and I was always told it was a wedding cake top," the man said. "It turns out it was a baby."

Emmett Till was brutally murdered in 1955 in Mississippi after allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Conservatives wrote very nasty emails... then sent them to the wrong place.

In President Donald Trump's view, even the inadequate air conditioning at the White House is Barack Obama's fault.

Three people were killed and another 12 were injured in a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival Sunday evening, said Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee.

A 24-year-old woman died on Alaska's Stampede Trail while attempting to visit an abandoned bus made famous by the book and film "Into the Wild."

I found several eggs on leaves of borage plants in our garden and didn't know what butterfly had laid them.  Borage is a common weed, and is used by a wide variety of butterflies as a food plant for their caterpillars.  I kept the leaves in a jar, and after a while some small black caterpillars emerged. began eating voraciously, and grew much larger.


They look ferocious, but were no problem to raise except for their copious, wet, messy frass that required frequent cleaning and changing of the container (other caterpillars, like the Polyphemus silkmoth ones, excrete dry little pellets that resemble pepper grains and are easy to clean up after).


When they were full size, the caterpillars climbed to the lid on the jar, hung in a "J" shape, and proceeded to undergo that remarkable metamorphosis that is endlessly fascinating to me - the formation of a chyrsalis.

I didn't know how long the conversion to a butterfly would take.  With Monarchs, it's easy to tell by looking at the outside of the chrysalis when the butterfly is ready inside; with these it was more difficult.  But all one has to do is wait...


... and voila!  One morning, there she is, wings hanging down.  By the time I found her she had pumped the fluid into the wings, which were fully inflated but not yet dried.  She was docile and not ready to fly, so she readily transferred to my finger for a portrait:


The pattern is quite beautiful and intricate close-up (much harder to appreciate in the field when she tends to be a blur of activity, but easier here where you can enlarge the image with a click).  She is closely related to the American Lady (whose life-cycle I documented two summers ago) and looks rather similar top-side, but on the underwings this Painted Lady has four eyespots on the hindwing, while the American Lady has two larger ones.

Painted Ladies are very common in the United States, and with Monarchs are probably the two butterflies most often raised in classrooms by small children.  Kits are available from Carolina Biological Supply and other sources; these contain food in the form of a sort of agar, which is all the caterpillars need for nutrition, so you don't have to scour the wilds of your neighborhood looking for food plants.  Raising them is a pleasant diversion for small children.  And for some adults.

Reposted from 2012 to add some additional photos:


 I was weeding the garden today when a Painted Lady arrived.  She was actively nectaring on the coneflowers and Monarda and sat for the above portrait that is rather better than the original one at top.  At one point I was also able to obtain a backlit view -


Note the four small eyespots on the back of her lower wing - these distinguish her from the very similar-looking American Lady, which has two large eyespots in that location.

After nectaring she got busy ovipositing on a variety of plants in the garden, but especially on some scrawny Pearly Everlastings (Anaphalis).  Like the American Ladies, the Painted Ladies oviposit on the top of the leaves, so it was easy for me to spot the eggs.  I brought one leaf into the house in order to photograph the egg with my desktop digital microscope:


The egg in terms of size, shape, color etc looks quite like the American Lady eggs (see my 2010 photoessay).  But the microscope revealed what I had not seen before - that the egg is actually deposited beneath the network of soft hairs that coat the leaves of the Pearly Everlasting.  The first instar will hatch into a semi-protected environment.  Fascinating.  I've never seen that before.

(some reader may know the technical term for those "hairs" that cover the leaves - I'd like to amend the text accordingly.  Tx in advance)

The Texas-born high school student who was detained by immigration officials for more than three weeks says he was treated less than human at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility.

Just because I'm changing my baby's dirty diaper on an Old Navy clothing counter.

There is some trenchant discussion and a sharing of experiences with publicly-disposed diapers at the trashy subreddit source.

Note from that thread: "...Supreme Court ruling that states; you now have no privacy in public places and can be filmed without consent."

Now THIS is fashion

Fashion lovers know that clothes aren’t just pieces of fabric that cover your body so you don’t end up on the news and then become known as “that guy who was naked in Target” for the rest of your life. Clothing is a chance for you to express yourself and tell the world who you are; clothing is art. And as such, it should make a statement. Usually these statements are more inferred, but sometimes they’re pretty literal and on the nose.

Like these shoes, designed by 27-year-old Los Angeles resident, Sam Morrison.

He took screenshots of Trump’s tweets that directly contradict each other and printed them nice and clearly atop each pair of sandals, (which is truly a genius idea, since the well of contradictory Trump tweets runneth deep) and called the entire collection,

Trump Flip Flops.

Which is clever as hell, since it’s true in more ways than one.

Courtesy of Sam Morrison

As you could imagine, these sold like hotcakes. The flip flops came in three different designs, sporting five different pairings of Trump’s polar opposite opinions about the same thing, and Sam sold every single pair he made — in less than a month.

Courtesy of Sam Morrison

This already sounds impressive, but it gets even better once you know just how many pairs he made.

YEP.

ONE THOUSAND PAIRS SOLD. IN UNDER A MONTH.

Courtesy of Sam Morrison

Unfortunately, Sam says that Trump Flip Flops are sold out for good, but who knows, maybe the president will do or say something that’s just too damn “inspirational” to NOT use as the design for Sam’s next great fashion project.

For now, you can look at all of the designs on his website.

I’m crying. I’m crying

Originally published July 2019

Humans have evolved into incredibly unique creatures, each with our own interests and tastes, but for all our differences and opinions, there are a few facts we all know to be universally true. Fart jokes are funny, turning the radio down makes reading street signs easier, and things that go fast are cool. We love when things go fast. It doesn’t matter what it is, animals, vehicles, people — if it goes fast, we like it and we want to watch it go fast. In fact, we love watching things go fast so much, we’ve turned that basic notion into multiple sports.

RACING!

YEAH, BABY! Foot races, horse races, car races, boat races, WE GOT IT ALL! But what do we like more than simply watching things go fast competitively? Watching things go fast competitively with ridiculous additions that make going fast extremely hard to do and hilarious to watch. With that, I present to you,

DINOSAUR RACING.

No, not actual dinosaurs. Science isn’t there yet, and if it was, I’d like to think the first thing we’d do with actual dinosaurs would not be make them run a track for our own entertainment. But that’s probably exactly what would happen, because humans objectively kind of suck and we should not be trusted with dinosaurs. So this is the next best thing. You know what? No. I take that back. This isn’t the next best thing, this is the best thing. This is it. This is the pinnacle of sport. This is...

Humans sprinting while wearing inflatable T. Rex costumes.

If that sounds ridiculous, that’s because IT TOTALLY IS. AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH. As if trying to watch people sprint in giant inflatable dinosaur costumes wasn’t already funny enough, the names of some of the competitors are Dino Dasher, Ramblin’ Rex, Rex Girlfriend, Fossilizer, and my personal favorite, the winner of the whole thing,

Regular Unleaded.

"I’m not going to say I’m sorry to them because they kept pushing at it," she said.

Whether you take yours with salt on the rim or without, here are five facts about everyone's favorite grown-up slushie.

A scary moment was caught on camera in Yellowstone National Park when a bison tossed a 9-year-old into the air.

The 97-2 vote sends the bill to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.

Car thieves left an apology note saying it was an emergency, but they also scribbled throughout the car's interior upholstery with markers.

The CEO of La Colombe Coffee said he offered to give a school district $22,000 to wipe out unpaid lunch bills.

It is the administration's latest step to clamp down on the food stamps program, which covers 38 million Americans, and other public assistance services.

The 5 1/2-inch American pocket shark is the first of its kind to be discovered in the Gulf of Mexico.

A Pennsylvania school district is warning that children could end up in foster care if their parents do not pay overdue school lunch bills.

A woman in Lincoln, Nebraska, is fighting the city over what she says is a sculpture depicting devil horns at the Lincoln Children's Zoo. It's actually just Spiderman's hands shooting a web.

A 10-year-old boy in California remains hospitalized after an adult neighbor reportedly threw a lit firework to him that exploded in his hand.

Modesto and Stockton are among the 10 least educated cities in the U.S., according to a recent study from WalletHub.

This is the best news I’ve read all summer

For some, the fashion options that arrive with hot weather is the best part of summer, and for others it’s the worst part. Not everyone loves this time of year and dressing for it can be a pain. Maybe you’re sensitive about your calves so you don’t like shorts, maybe sandals hurt your feet, maybe you’re like me and 90% of the clothes you own are black which is not ideal for sunshine and high temperatures but you gotta do it because you sweat like a Thanksgiving ham in a sauna and literally any other color showcases that to the world. Too much information? Perhaps.

The clothing you put on your body everyday has a big impact on how you feel physically as well as psychologically, so making sure you feel both cool and like, super cool, dude is important. You gotta feel happy in your clothes, man! And what’s guaranteed to make anyone happy? Dogs.

So this summer, why not dress to impress with matching outfits for you and your canine campadre?

Courtesy of Pablo and Co/Etsy

That’s right — not just any matching outfits.

Matching dad-style, grill-ready Hawaiian t-shirts.

Courtesy of Pablo and Co/Etsy

How could you not feel cool on all levels immediately after putting one of these bad boys on??? Also probably helping to put your pooch’s shirt on too since, y’know, they don’t have thumbs.

LOOK HOW STYLISH THESE GOOD BOYS ARE

Plus, if anyone has the audacity to say anything bad about your slick new summer top, you can loudly point out that your dog is wearing the same one, because anyone who badmouths a dog’s fashion choice is a certifiable monster.

These amazing matching shirts are by Pablo and Co. Boutique and are available on Etsy in a variety of sizes for both dogs and the humans with the thumbs and credit cards.