firehose

RT @JPBarlow: Obama's DOJ pursues war crimes immunity for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

What exactly makes honey such a special food? The answer is as complex as honey’s flavor — you don’t get a food source with no expiration date without a whole slew of factors working in perfect harmony.

in an interview with stone cold, kurt angle said he was originally supposed to join ecw, but the night he was at an ecw taping, raven and the sandman had a match and raven pulled a crucifix from under the ring and attempted to crucify the sandman, and kurt angle was so offended he left the show immediately and he told paul heyman he was gonna sue him if they ever showed the footage of angle at the show. the crowd went silent when it happened (and thats rare because ecw fans in the 90s were freaks) 

With a new album, Event II, out Oct. 1, Deltron 3030 has announced a relatively extensive North American tour. A full list of dates is below, but it’s worth noting here that a number of the stops will feature not only the stylings of Dan The Automator, Del The Funky Homosapien, Kid Koala, and a three-piece backing band, but also an accompanying 16-piece orchestra.

For those who don’t see their town listed below, don’t dismay. More dates are coming in the near future.

Deltron 3030 tour 2013
Sept. 8—Rock The Bells—Los Angeles, California #
Sept. 15—Rock The Bells—San Francisco, California #
Oct. 8—Paradise—Boston, Massachusetts
Oct. 9—Brooklyn Bowl—Brooklyn, New York #
Oct. 10—Howard Theater—Washington D.C.
Oct. 11—Jefferson Theater—Charlottesville, Virginia #
Oct. 13—Theatre Of The Living Arts—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania #
Oct. 14—Highline Ballroom—New York, New York #
Oct. 16 ...

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Green Day—and I say this as someone who has every note and every word of Dookie burned into my each of my neurons, where they will remain until I die—was never, shall we say, a bastion of admirable punk ideology, but it's still strange to see the proto-pop-punkers just... keep on milking as they barrel into their (holy shit) 40s. Next up: A documentary about their musical about their once-timely political rock opera.

Broadway Idiot, which chronicles the theater adaptation of Green Day's American Idiot, is set to hit the big screen on October 18, it was announced Thursday.

The documentary will begin a special theatrical engagement in New York on Oct. 11 before hitting theaters in the TheU.S. and Canada and video on demand a week later....

Directed by Doug Hamilton, the title looks at the challenges of adapting the multi-platinum punk-rock opera into the 2010 Broadway production. Broadway Idiot debuted at the South by Southwest Festival earlier this year. (Via.)

I was in college the one and only time I saw the Rolling Stones in concert, and they were far, far past their expiration date—seeing Jagger was still impressive, and it wasn't a bad show or anything, but it was also profoundly odd to be watching them while sitting behind a rich-looking fat dude who was wearing what had to be at least a $500 leather jacket emblazoned with the Stones' tongue logo. I remember thinking that it'd probably be kind of weird to see the bands I grew up with when, and if, they ever got to a similar point. Now I know, and yep, it's pretty weird.

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A central Kentucky theater owner who trained pilots during the Vietnam War is refusing to show the nation's top movie, "The Butler" because one of the stars is Jane Fonda who was an outspoken opponent of the conflict.

General Mills has announced the return of its legendary Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy cereals, two products that have been banished to their breakfast-y crypts for decades. This Halloween, both cereals will be on-sale alongside the traditional cereal monsters Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry.

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Doctor Who show runner Steven Moffat discussed a few things we're interested to know. But can we believe him?

So this isn't the first Thorgi we've ever seen. Who cares? Every day needs another Thorgi. (Neatorama)

Ikea is so good at so many things. Why is it so bad at delivery?

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hypnosec writes "According to a new revelation by Sarah Sharp, misinterpretation of the USB 2.0 standard may have been the culprit behind USB disconnects on resume in Linux all along rather than cheap and buggy devices. According to Sharp the USB core is to blame for the disconnections rather than the devices themselves as the core doesn’t wait long enough for the devices to transition from a “'esume state to U0.' The USB 2.0 standard states that system software that handles USB must provide for 10ms resume recovery time (TRSMRCY) during which it shouldn’t attempt a connection to the device connected to that particular bus segment."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

matthewgaydos:

Well that’s probably not real

A lovely gem from the warehouse today.

By law, coastal policy in North Carolina will not incorporate the latest scientific predictions of sea level rises. Here's the key sentence in ABC's report:

A projection map showing land along the coast underwater would place the permits of many planned development projects in jeopardy.

The amazing thing about it is how this real estate has political system requirements for its investors. Just imagine communities of people who deny not only the human agency involved in climate change, but its very existence.

Bradley Manning, just recently sentenced for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, has released a statement announcing, "I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female." Manning also gave instructions on his-now-her preferred personal pronouns:

I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility).

News organizations are struggling today with the pronominal quandary in reporting on Manning's new transgender identity. On Slate's XX Factor blog, Amanda Marcotte writes:

The transition is already awkward. Earlier today, the New York Times headline on a Reuters story on Manning's announcement danced around gender pronouns: "Manning Says Is Female and Wants to Live as a Woman." Clearing up the grammar for an updated headline just made the situation worse: "Manning Says He Is Female and Wants to Lives as a Woman." Well, if "he" is female, then isn't the word "she"? Manning has finally had a chance to express her gender preferences. Since most journalists had a notion this was coming, using confusion or surprise as an excuse for those headlines isn't an option.

On Twitter, New York Magazine editor Justin Miller also drew attention to the headline on the Reuters story as it originally appeared on the New York Times site:

Imagine a world w/o pronouns –> RT @nytimesglobal: Manning Says Is Female and Wants to Live as a Woman http://t.co/pdTdAVMxe0

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) August 22, 2013

It's important to note, however, that "Manning Says Is Female" is actually typical Reuters-ese, despite how peculiar it sounds. As we've discussed on Language Log several times, Reuters headlines often take the form "X say(s) C," where C is a complement clause with subject omitted, and the omitted subject would normally be a third-person pronoun coreferring with the antecedent X. (See "From the headline desk at Language Log Plaza" [7/28/07], "Reuters says guilty of elliptical headlines" [8/28/07], "An ursine crash blossom" [1/20/10], "'U.S. Supreme Court says upholds health care mandate'" [6/28/12].) It just so happens that in this case, the ellipticism glosses over the difficulty of assigning Manning a personal pronoun.

Of course, the outlets that syndicate Reuters stories are under no obligation to use the original headlines, so when the Times edited the headline on this story the editors had to make a conscious choice of which pronoun to use. One might argue that the "he" is necessary in the headline so as not to confuse the reader, and that the explanation of Manning's new identity and pronoun choice can then be spelled out explicitly in the article itself. Or one could simply honor Manning's wishes and use feminine pronouns right away. These debates are no doubt going on in newsrooms around the English-speaking world today.

While Marcotte has critiqued the Times's use of "he" in the revised headline, it's interesting to see what other editorial choices the Times is making. After featuring the Reuters wire report, the Times posted an article with its own reporting, written by Emmarie Huetteman and Brian Stelter, with the headline, "After Sentencing, Manning Says, ‘I Am Female’." Using the reported first-person pronoun "I" neatly sidesteps the "he"/"she" problem entirely.

And as is typical for breaking news, the Times story has been evolving online over the course of the day. The site NewsDiffs helpfully tracks such revisions — here are some changes made to Huetteman and Stelter's article after it was originally posted:

We can see that Times editors are currently dealing with the pronominal issue by avoiding personal pronouns wherever possible: "some of his supporters" becomes "some supporters," "his defense team" becomes "the defense team," and "his trial" becomes "the trial." Additionally, the use of the military title "Private" avoids having to decide on a gendered "courtesy title" ("Mr." vs. "Ms."/"Miss"/"Mrs."), which the Times would typically assign according to house style. Consider this the journalistic equivalent of "no-naming" — the sociolinguistic phenomenon wherein a speaker avoids address terms because of uncertainty over what to call an interlocutor. Such are the difficulties in a language that lacks a commonly accepted gender-neutral pronoun (no matter what inroads singular "they" has made).

[Update: New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan chimes in:

Here is the entry on it from The Times’s “Manual of Style and Usage,” a guidebook used by reporters and editors throughout the newsroom:

transgender (adj.) is an overall term for people whose current identity differs from their sex at birth, whether or not they have changed their biological characteristics. Cite a person’s transgender status only when it is pertinent and its pertinence is clear to the reader. Unless a former name is newsworthy or pertinent, use the name and pronouns (he, his, she, her, hers) preferred by the transgender person. If no preference is known, use the pronouns consistent with the way the subject lives publicly.

Susan Wessling, the deputy editor who supervises The Times’s copy editors, told me that there are two important considerations. “We want to respect the preferences of the subject,” she said, “and we want to provide clarity for readers.”

Toward that end, she said, “We’ll probably use more words than less.” In other words, The Times will explain the change in stories.

“We can’t just spring a new name and a new pronoun” on readers with no explanation, she said. She noted the importance in the stylebook entry of the words “unless a former name is newsworthy or pertinent,” which certainly applies here.

An article on The Times’s Web site on Thursday morning on the gender issue continued to use the masculine pronoun and courtesy title. That, said the associate managing editor Philip B. Corbett, will evolve over time.

It’s tricky, no doubt. But given Ms. Manning’s preference, it may be best to quickly change to the feminine and to explain that — rather than the other way around.

See further commentary from Ryan Kearney in The New Republic, Maureen O'Connor in New York Magazine's The Cut blog, and Andrew Beaujon in Poynter Online.]

The science of what makes coffee great.

Next year, Marvel heroes will once again leave their comic book pages for (sometimes disaster-fraught) reality. Broadway’s Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark producer Michael Cohl is partnering with Marvel and live entertainment producer Hero Ventures to create a $30 million Marvel-themed touring production. Dubbed “The Marvel Experience,” it will feature dozens of Marvel characters, 3-D animated movies, a 4-D motion ride, and employ additional multimedia technology under a dome the size of two football fields. The production is set to travel to two-dozen cities around the United States in 2014, with weeklong stays at each. Described as a “first-person superhero adventure,” there’s no indication whether the cost of becoming a superhero will be a tragic event in your past.  

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New York Times

Council Overrules Bloomberg on Police Monitor and Profiling Suits New York Times The City Council voted Thursday to greatly increase oversight of the New York Police Department and of its widespread use of stop-and-frisk tactics. Connect With NYTMetro · Metro Twitter Logo. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and ... City Council Overrides Mayor's Vetoes on NYPD BillsWall Street Journal New York City Council overrides Mayor Bloomberg's vetoes, passes bills to rein ...New York Daily News Council Overrides Mayor's Veto, OK's NYPD WatchdogABC News Huffington Post -MSNBC -New York Magazine all 117 news articles »

Mudd the bulldog has a great time jumping, rolling, and flipping around on a trampoline in this fun 2012 video.

video via stormy050607

via Dog Faming

We've had a good run, but the Near Term Extinction movement and others are saying that it's pretty much over for humans.

Incorrect Coffee Order Provokes Beating At Lauderhill Donut Shop WBFS Jeffrey Wright is accused of beating a Dunkin Donuts worker over a wrong coffee order. (Source: Broward Sheriff's Office). Carey Codd Web Headshot. Reporting Carey Codd. Filed under. Local, News, Syndicated Local. Related tags. Carey Codd, Gunman ... and more »

Sometimes, you have to give up a little privacy in order to find out how much—or how little—privacy you really have. So I handed over the keys to my Gmail account to a professor at the MIT Media Lab.

Gun fires inside kindergartener's backpack in Memphis school cafeteria; no one ... The Tribune MEMPHIS, Tennessee — Officials say a gun went off inside a kindergartener's backpack in a Memphis school cafeteria, though no one was hurt. A news release from the Shelby County school district Thursday says the gun went off inside the student's ... and more »

Bullet flies through window at Ga. college Kansas.com SAVANNAH, Ga. — Savannah State University officials say a public safety officer's gun accidentally discharged on the campus, sending a bullet crashing through two windows before it came to a stop in a classroom wall. University spokeswoman Loretta ... and more »