During today’s hearing, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee brought in sentient sunglasses display Bono to discuss what role foreign aid should play in stopping violent extremism. Instead, Bono recommended sending two powerful Jews and Chris Rock directly into ISIS’s clutches.
Alright, Bono. Let’s hear it:
And the first people that Adolf Hitler threw out of Germany were the Dadaists and surrealists. You speak violence. You speak their language. But you laugh at them when they’re goose-stepping down the street, and it takes away their power.
So I’m suggesting that the Senate send in Amy Schumer and Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen. Thank you.
Do Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, and Sacha Baron Cohen have any fighting experience whatsoever? Do they even speak Arabic? How would ISIS understand their jokes? The entire proposition seems poorly thought-out.
Bono may want to send Hollywood’s funniest to “where the streets have no name” (ISIS-controlled Syria and Iraq). But me? I want to see them live.
Robert Upshur “Bob” Woodward has been on the staff of the Washington Post since 1971, has authored 18 political tomes, and is half-responsible for perhaps the most famous work of investigative journalism of all time. Woodward regularly appears MSNBC and Fox News Sunday as a talking head, and he’s been decorated with just about every prize in journalism known to man. He probably has a spare room set up for him in the White House by now. And yet, in an interview with Slate’s Isaac Chotiner, Carl Bernstein’s better half reveals that he thinks of himself as something of a lone wolf, operating on the fringe:
You are seen as a Washington insider, an establishment person. Has the rise of Trump changed the way you view the process or shaken your faith in the wisdom of a governing elite to make things work?
No, no. Look, I’ve always been an outsider. I scramble hard to preserve my outsider status, if you will. Sometimes people agree, or sometimes people disagree, but I’m not—
You really see yourself as an outsider?
I do.
That’s interesting.
I do. Well, look at the books. People have said I’m a Republican, people have said I’m a Democrat, I’m from the right, I’m from the left. If you go through, people will make arguments, but I’m just trying to be factual.
Just like flossing and answering your emails in a prompt and orderly fashion, successfully swiping a MetroCard on the first try is a challenging task, and still society expects some of us to complete these tasks nearly every day.
But perhaps not! According to the New York Daily News, on Wednesday the MTA will submit paperwork formally requesting innovative, contact-free ride payment methods from any company or business with creative solutions to spare.
Imagine the possibilities. Practically, within the next couple of years we’ll probably be downloading the L Train app and flashing our phones—if those even exist anymore—to get through the turnstiles. Counterpoint: rechargeable MTA key chains sound kind of dope. Anything but the MetroCard.
Aligning passions and interests with a presidential candidate you could actually see yourself voting for is a tricky business, especially when the field is as grim as it’s been this year.
Recent AP-GfK polling indicates that a majority of Americans don’t believe that any of the remaining candidates represent their point of view well. And they feel strongly about this:
At least half say they would be disappointed or even angry if either Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton were nominated. They are the front-runners for their parties’ nominations.
Of course, no one presidential hopeful is ever going to please everyone in all fifty states. It is nevertheless undeniable that election exhaustion is real, and it is seeping into our bones which only grow heavier with each botched stump speech and talk show spat. America deserves a nap.
I was kind of tired of the FBI vs. Apple story, but now it has a secret collective of morally ambiguous hackers, and I’m into it again.
According to a report from the Washington Post, the Federal Bureau of Investigation paid a group of hackers a one-time fee to pinpoint a zero-day security flaw, which was used to create hardware to assist in unlocking the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter.
The Washington Postdid not identify the group, but referred to the individuals in it as “researchers” in the report:
The researchers, who typically keep a low profile, specialize in hunting for vulnerabilities in software and then in some cases selling them to the U.S. government. They were paid a one-time flat fee for the solution.
To add another wrinkle, the Post is reporting that at least one of these researchers is a “gray hat” hacker, the kind open to helping governments spy on people:
Some hackers, known as “white hats,” disclose the vulnerabilities to the firms responsible for the software or to the public so they can be fixed and are generally regarded as ethical. Others, called “black hats,” use the information to hack networks and steal people’s personal information.
At least one of the people who helped the FBI in the San Bernardino case falls into a third category, often considered ethically murky: researchers who sell flaws — for instance, to governments or to companies that make surveillance tools.
I’ve asked the FBI for confirmation, and I’ve also asked Apple if it is now aware of the security flaw in question. I’ll update if I hear back, but for now—how about that!
Apple masterfully positioned itself as a champion of personal privacy in the PR war it waged against the government, but this could be a strong narrative choice by the FBI. “Government forced to turn to shady hackers after Apple bails out of alliance” is a compelling storyline in this ongoing battle. Yes, the government still looks incompetent. But it also makes Apple look weak—for all its talk about security, it still left flaws discoverable for shadowy freelance hackers.
If more information comes out about this third party’s “grey hat” past, the FBI could also use it as an argument to push tech companies to comply with demands for assistance. After all, look at the alternative—creating lucrative incentives for random hackers auctioning off security flaws to the highest-bidding governments.
The Panama Papers offer a good opportunity to say: Hey, how much is all this offshore tax haven bullshit costing the American public. According to one estimate: a shitload, of money.
The American Economic Association today points to a 2014 research paper that made a reasonable stab at quantifying the full cost of tax revenue lost from individuals and companies using offshore tax havens. Of course only NERDS wanted to read this stuff in 2014, but now that it’s COOL to care about offshore tax havens maybe COOL people like you will want to check it out, also? Hm?
The paper, by Gabriel Zucman, found that a full 8% of global wealth is held offshore. Here is what that means for the U.S. Treasury, via the AEA:
The nominal corporate tax rate has been 35% since 1993, but the proportion of U.S. corporate profits actually collected by the IRS (the effective tax rate) has never reached even 30% in the years since that change and in 2013 stood around 16%. This discrepancy can’t be blamed entirely on offshore tax havens – some is attributable to other tax breaks like deductions for manufacturing income or writeoffs for capital losses during the Great Recession – but Zucman estimates that offshore tax schemes are responsible for about two-thirds of the decline in the effective tax rate since 1998, representing a loss of over $100 billion for the U.S. treasury in 2013.
That is roughly the combined budgets of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education.
Below you’ll find the lengthy brief prepared by Ted Cruz and his legal staff during his tenure as Texas Solicitor General, in which capacity the current Republican presidential candidate defended the Texas Attorney General’s desire to uphold a statute banning the sale of dildos and other sex toys before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. (The discussion regarding the “substantive-due-process right to stimulate one’s genitals” begins on page 15.) You can find searchable version of the filing here.
Donald Trump speaks at JetSmart Aviation Services on April 10, 2016 (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
Last night Donald Trump shed some light on one of the great mysteries of our time: How does the most infamous man on Twitter actually tweet? The answer? He spends most of the day shouting his tweets at assistants for them to send. But after 7pm it’s all him, baby.
“During the day, I’m in the office, I just shout it out to one of the young ladies who are tremendous… I’ll just shout it out, and they’ll do it,” Trump told Anderson Cooper last night. “But during the evenings, after 7 o’clock or so, I will always do it by myself.”
It’s long been our obsession here at Gizmodo to find evidence that Donald Trump has ever used a personal computer. Almost all signs point to no. But the question that naturally comes along with that is whether Trump has ever used a tablet or a smartphone for something like web browsing. And perhaps most importantly, whether he has ever actually sent one of his infamous tweets.
We’ve always known that Trump prefers to dictate his tweets during the day. But if we believe Mr. Trump’s assertions on CNN last night, he really is the one pushing pixels (with his enormous fingers) after 7pm or so. And he’s truly a big fan of the “genius” he sees everyday on Twitter.
“You see what’s going on. And there is some genius there. I mean, you will get... you will read some of the stuff, there is genius there,” he told Anderson Cooper. “You have to find the right genius.”
In a rare admission of something approximating humility, Donald Trump said that some of his retweets are “a little bit shaky.” But he assured the audience that his own tweets were just fine. As a reminder, Trump often calls people clowns, losers, and haters when he’s not retweeting.
So there you have it. Trump has a “young lady” do it during the day, he does it himself after 7pm, and when he’s doing with others he can be a little bit shaky. Mystery solved. But we still don’t know if he’s ever used a computer.
The exquisitely taxidermied corpse of Russia’s communist revolutionary turns 146 next week. Just this January, two Russian deputies urged to “end the outrage” and “inhumanity” and bury Lenin already, the “Christian” way, but Putin didn’t want to “divide society.” And so, the sarcophagus is to remain above ground, on display in the Red Square mausoleum.
The “quasibiological” means of keeping Lenin’s mummy presentable are fancy and expensive. Between the 1950's and the 1980's, a team of 200 biochemists, surgeons, anatomists, and researchers worked on preserving “the look, feel and flexibility of Lenin’s body.” But government funding was pulled after the collapse of the Soviet Union and private donations to a special fond kept the project kind of alive.
Yesterday, the Moscow Times reported that 13 million rubles ($197,000) from the federal budget will now be used to keep Lenin as fresh as scientifically possible, at least through 2016.
Lenin is not the man he used to be. His nose is a sculpture, his ears are wax, and the ever-rotting and disappearing skin bits need to be recreated with plastics, constantly. There are microinjections of embalming fluid to microinject. Skin-discoloring fungus and mold are still lovingly dabbed away with mild bleach, and every 18 months, he goes for a long dip in chemicals. He’s a busy body.
There were also some trouble makers last year arrested for spilling “holy water” on the mausoleum walls and waving an “ARISE AND LEAVE” banner. One Russian deputy proposed organizing a special “red tourism” program for Chinese citizens. But generally, Lenin is not as popular as he once was. People still visit, but the lines aren’t that long.
Rejoice and be glad, for it is time for an update on The Slot’s favorite political commentator. Craig Mazin, Ted Cruz’s completely delightful college roommate, is back. Fuckin’ Craig. Love that guy.
In recent months, Mazin has continued to be relentlessly, single-mindedly devoted to trolling Ted Cruz, weighing in on every good news story about the candidate. About Ted Cruz possibly being the Zodiac Killer:
And about the really wonderful choice presented to the GOP right now:
Which leads us to wonder: Ted Cruz must have surely noticed these tweets by now, right? At what point are these two former bunkmates going to have an uncomfortable phone call? We’re sure Mazin will keep us updated.
Last week, a local Denver journalist named Stan Bush reported that Hillary Clinton’s campaign appeared to be using a hidden static noise machine to prevent reporters and other passerby from hearing the candidate’s stump speech at an outdoor fundraiser held at the private residence of Colorado’s governor, John Hickenlooper. The general allegation hung in odd kind of limbo, however, since Bush managed to record the machine’s (inherently indiscriminate) sound but was unable to photograph the actual device, while Clinton’s press shop ignored reporters’ attempts to confirm the machine’s existence. Meanwhile, the underlying question went unanswered: Why was Clinton using a static noise machine in the first place?
Following our write-up, a Clinton donor who attended this specific fundraiser told Gawker that he personally witnessed the the static noise machine being operated: “I can confirm without any doubt that there was a white noise machine set up on the perimeter to prevent the public and reporters from hearing what Hillary Clinton said.” He did not know, however, what in Clinton’s speech, as he remembers it, would have inspired such a precautionary measure. (The same donor, who provided a copy of an invitation to the fundraiser bearing his name, asked not to be identified because of his involvement in local Democratic politics.)
The machine, the donor said, consisted of what appeared to be three separate speakers hooked up to a small controller. “They were big stereo speakers, like the kind people had in their houses in the Seventies,” he said. “They were connected to a box about the size of a toaster, with the three speakers placed around the perimeter of the yard. They were in the bushes—literally in the hedges.” Here’s what it sounded like from the street:
Neither the donor nor the other attendees seemed to be aware of the machine during Clinton’s speech, though. “I had no consciousness of [the speakers in the hedges] when I was actually in the fundraiser,” said the donor, who discovered the speakers, and the sound they were playing, as he was preparing to leave the event before Clinton had finished speaking. “It seemed to underscore the exclusivity of the event,” he added. “I thought it was really surprising.”
The same donor characterized Clinton’s speech as “unexceptional platform stuff—for immigration there needs to be a path to citizenship, we need to fight for gun control, that kind of thing.” At one point during the same speech, the donor pointed out, Clinton “seemed to be taking a swipe at Bernie Sanders” by recalling how, after campaigning against and ultimately conceding to Barack Obama in 2008, she had “thrown her support behind him, tried to persuade her supporters to support Obama, and on the floor of the 2008 convention made a motion to name Obama as the candidate by acclamation.” (Acclamation is a kind of voting procedure that dispenses with the need for a formal ballot; Sanders has recently disputed Clinton’s qualifications to become President.)
“I saw it as more of a climate of control—of being fearful that something might slip out,” the donor told Gawker.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not return a request for comment. If you know any more about this, please get in touch.
“If the shell isn’t fried the proper 90 seconds or if it sits for more than 15 minutes after cooking, the cheese hardens and won’t be melty enough for a proper stringy bridge between separated pieces.” The complex machinations behind the Taco Bell Quesalupa.
Ethan Couch, the infamous “affluenza teen” who skated on probation after killing four people in a drunk driving accident in 2013, has finally been tagged with the extended prison sentence he and his family fled the country to avoid.
Judge Wayne Salvant sentenced Couch, who appeared in adult court for the first time, to 180 days in prison for each of the four people who died when he slammed into an SUV that had pulled over the side of the road. The 720-day sentence comes out to just shy of two years. Judge Salvant is giving Couch’s attorneys two weeks to prepare an argument against the sentence.
Couch’s new sentence will also bar him from drinking, using drugs, and driving once he leaves prison, though, obviously, that’s never stopped him before.
When the faceless editors of Wikipedia decide an article is not fit for public consumption, it’s gone, only accessible to the site’s top editors—at least, it was. But now we’re keeping track of all the articles Wikipedia doesn’t see fit to print, to present you with very best of the site’s weirdest and worst. Please, enjoy.
Thirty years ago, in the now defunct Spy magazine, Graydon Carter referred to the perpetually sundowning Donald Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian.” Trump did not like this. As Carter wrote in Vanity Fair this past November, “To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him—generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers.”
This phrase has become intrinsic to our nation’s political dialogue. And now, Wikipedia wants to rip it away.
Best line:
Trump has long denied the accusation that his fingers are short, claiming that “my fingers are long and beautiful, as, has been well-documented, are various other parts of my body.” Trump, however, has neither objected nor commented upon the claims of vulgarity, nor has he provided documentation verifying the size of his digits or genitals, in response to the claims of shortness, and thus his boasts must be taken as anecdotal.
Why it got deleted:
The discussion surrounding deleting Short-Fingered Vulgarian is lively, intense, and fraught with emotion. I highly suggest reading it in full here. The general argument is that the article itself is “definitely not encyclopedic content” and “borders on harassment.”
Although, as other editors argued, not only has the nickname made its way into common usage all over the world, but Wikipedia has also kept far more directly offensive entries in the past. Most notably, Barack the Magic Negro still exists (thought it is being considered for deletion).
Why it shouldn’t have been:
The article could very easily have been merged with the current Donald Trump entry, but this—perhaps more than any other article in all of Wikipedia—deserves to live. The phrase has been written aboutextensively.
What’s more, this vulgarian does in fact have remarkably short fingers.
This particular entry is jam-packed with helpful safety tips and absolutely no paragraph breaks whatsoever. A few highlights:
The use of anti illegal technology, like the human body after injection of vaccine, even if the virus into the body, it will not cause disease, that the human body has a disease resistance. The use of anti violation technology, is to make the technology and equipment with anti violation.
As well as:
Robots will also be due to the “poisoning” and other reasons for the “illegal” operation.
That is the only mention of “robots” in the entirety of the entry. What is happening to the robots? When does poison come into the picture? Are the robots our friends? We may never know.
Why it got deleted:
It’s likely because it was translated from a Chinese language, but I cannot make much of what this is... It appears to be more of a concept of technology, and from what I can tell somebody is developing it. But this said, it almost feels like a bit of an advert... I’m not entirely sure, however I’m pretty certain it does not belong here quite yet if at all.
Since we’re only working with three sentences, I present the article in full:
Mask fetishism is a fetishistic desire to see a subject wearing or taking off a mask. The mask may be of any kind such as diving masks, which is very common. Some people often get sexually attracted by videos of women diving or snorkeling.
Why it got deleted:
“Practically non-notable. Cites no sources.”
It was also probably just an excuse to put up the following photo:
As one of the largest and most prestigious forensics competitions in the country, it’s (probably) safe to say that whatever gets resolved at the National Debate Tournament should be as good as law.
For instance, in 2014 it was decided that “the United States should legalize all or nearly all of one or more of the following in the United States: marijuana, online gambling, physician-assisted suicide, prostitution, the sale of human organs.” Or, as in in 2009, the winning team argued that “the United States Federal Government should substantially reduce the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal, and/or substantially reduce and restrict the role and/or missions of its nuclear weapons arsenal.”
These kids seem to really know what they’re talking about! And yet, Wikipedia disagrees.
Best Line:
My favorite line comes not from the page itself, but from the discussion page on the entry’s imminent deletion:
There are no sources and no context, nothing to suggest this is a worthwhile topic.
Sounds like something a loser would say.
Why it got deleted:
According to Wikipedia, the editors “fail to see any encyclopedic value to this, just listcruft.”
According to me: Jesus, get it over it.
Why it shouldn’t have been:
The crybaby narc who argued not to legalize weed shouldn’t be allowed to keep the truth from the people.
Game of Thorns is a “novel” parodying Game of Thrones. Do you get it? It’s like instead of the words “thrones” they said “thorns.” These guys!
Best Line
WARNING: This book may be considered highly offensive and is not recommended for children. To enjoy this, you must have an expanded sense of humor. If you are expecting a serious book or Game of Thrones, you will be disappointed.
You’ve been warned, ok?
Why it got deleted:
The article is “promotional in tone” and also allegedly suffers from “unambiguous copyright infringement.”
Why it shouldn’t have been:
Just look at these customer reviews that are definitely real and not fake.
Should you be so inclined to read it, something tells me you are in for a whale of a time.
Several delegates in Indiana say they were threatened and harassed by Donald Trump supporters after giving interviews about their preferences to Politico this week.
The story, published Saturday, quoted several delegates explaining why they were not voting for Donald Trump.
“If Satan had the lead on him and was one delegate away from being nominated as our candidate, and Donald Trump was the alternative, I might vote for Donald Trump,” one delegate, GOP congressional candidate Craig Dunn, explained. “I’ve always wanted to own a casino, but he couldn’t give me a casino and have me vote for him.”
Dunn tells the Indy Star he received “25 to 30 hate emails, phone calls and voice mails, posts on Facebook,” including one calling him a “sorry (expletive)” and wishing him “the worst for you and yours!”
Another delegate, Kyle Babcock, told Politico Trump was his third choice because he seems unelectable.
“Wrong side Kyle,” said one email. “Hope the families well. Your name and info was sent to me on a list that is going public. Think before you take a step down the wrong path, the American people want to have faith in your but it looks like a future in hiding is more appealing.”
The email was signed, “The American.”
Delegate Tom John, chairman of Indiana’s 7th Congressional District, also got a message referencing his family after he described Trump as someone who “doesn’t represent what I want my party to represent.”
“You know traditional burial is polluting the planet. Tom hope the family is well,” the email said. “Your name and info has been given to me on a list that is about to go public. Good luck becoming a delegate, we are watching you.”
Indiana State Police, in a statement, say they are reviewing the messages to determine if any “cross the line of free speech and could be considered criminal in nature.” In Indiana, it is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $5,000, to threaten someone with the intent that they do something against their will or be afraid of retaliation if they don’t.
Trump’s Indiana chairman, Rex Early, tells the Star, “My reaction is, we’ve got some stupid people in this world.” And doesn’t he know it.
40 Wall Street, a.k.a. the Trump Building. Photo: Getty
On Tuesday, the #NeverTrump PAC posted an attack ad on Youtube accusing Donald Trump of stealing $150,000 of taxpayer money intended to help small businesses recover from the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. The ad is pretty much correct, but didn’t mention Trump’s other, weirder post-9/11 financial activity: a $1,000 donation to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund, which was co-founded by Tom Cruise and offered firefighters a treatment program designed by the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Here’s how it all went down.
In 2003, the Empire State Development Corporation—the state agency administering the federally-financed World Trade Center Business Recovery Grant Program—took back $1.2 million from 66 companies, after a federal audit suggested that about 1 percent of the $558 million in payments it made to 14,215 businesses might have been overpaid. The New York Times reported:
Under the grant program, businesses from 14th Street to the Battery with fewer than 500 employees could apply for aid. The amount a business received depended on its proximity to ground zero, its revenue in the fiscal year immediately before Sept. 11, 2001, and its economic losses related to Sept. 11 that were not reimbursed by insurance.
The grants averaged around $40,000. Firms in the financial industry received an average of about $70,000; stores and restaurants averaged $20,000.
Kevin Corbett, then ESDC’s chief operating officer, declined at the time to identify which companies had had grants retracted. “Some cases involved figures they gave us that on auditing didn’t match up,” he told the Times.
A few years later, a New York Daily News investigation identified some of those businesses, and the Trump Organization was among them. Part of the issue, the Daily News reported, was that the ESDC had used a different definition of “small business” than the federal government did: The state agency used head count, and federal law used annual revenue.
Trump was one of several business owners to—at least temporarily—benefit from the confusion. (So did the Rockefeller Group, Ford Models, Morgan Stanley, the AXA, the Bank of China, and Larry Silverstein.) The Trump-owned 40 Wall Street LLC received a $150,000 grant for losses at what is otherwise known as the Trump Building. From the Daily News:
The grant application describes the corporation through which Trump owns that building as having 28 employees and $26.8 million in annual revenues. That passed the ESDC’s small business test of less than 500 employees. But the revenue amount would put the single Trump property over the federal definition of a small business—which is $6 million annually for lessors of nonresidential buildings.
Not only was the Trump Organization ineligible for federal aid intended for small businesses, but Trump himself, in an interview conducted shortly after the actual attacks, said that 40 Wall Street had not been damaged. “I have a lot of property down there, but it wasn’t, fortunately, effected by what happened to the World Trade Center,” he said. “We will be involved in some form in helping to reconstruct.” He added, “The location is such, and the importance of the monument is such that we have to rebuild, not necessarily in the form of the Two Towers, but something that’s very big and very majestic.”
Indeed, as it happened, Trump had nothing to do with rebuilding the World Trade Center. But around the time that construction began on the project, the Donald J. Trump Foundation—the charitable organization of which Trump is president—finally did take action, according to The Smoking Gun: it made its first and only charitable contribution to any group dedicated to ameliorating the suffering of 9/11 victims in 2006. The foundation donated $1,000 to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund, which, according to a 2004 Slate article, “purports to ‘flush’ poisons from the body’s fat stores using an intensive regimen of jogging, oil ingestion, sauna, and high doses of vitamins, particularly niacin.”
Trump’s generosity to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund was matched only by the generosity of his constructive criticism: “In a nutshell,” he told reporters in 2005, “the Freedom Tower should not be allowed to be built. It’s not appropriate for Lower Manhattan, it’s not appropriate for Manhattan, it’s not appropriate for the United States, it’s not appropriate for freedom.”
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Spaghetti was a very bad dog, often pooping inside and on his owner’s son’s toys. He would also bark at the Dominos delivery boy who was only trying to do his F***ing job. Mr. Spaghetti is not missing. Mr. Spaghetti is dead.
Why won’t the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority police department name their new dog after him?
The MBTA, which operates the T, Boston’s dismal public transit system, recently held a social media contest to name its new K9 unit, a Belgian Malinois. Officials chose the name Hunter. But according to a report from Boston’s edition of the Metro newspaper, the name Mr. Spaghetti received nearly double the number of votes as the official winner.
Over the weekend, fliers began appearing around Boston and on social media urging the MBTA to reconsider its choice. They are surely among the most vivid and bizarre missives ever printed out and taped to a pole.
The fliers read in full:
Mr. Spaghetti is not missing. Mr. Spaghetti is dead. A piece of hail from the sky went through his head last year and shut off his brain. My name is Kimberly Strubell. I am 31 years old and I work at Build A Bear. My son is named Kent but is also 14 too. My boyfriend is Larry Nabisco. He is the regional manager of Build a Bear and works out of Frampton, MA. This flyer is to ask that you pray for Mr. Spaghetti’s soul. He was a very bad dog, often pooping inside and on my sons toys (once pooping on a rare copy of Jet Moto 2 for Playstation). He would also bark at the Dominos delivery boy who was only trying to do his F***ing job but this dog had to give him a hard time. I am very nervous that the dog is burning in Hell right now for his past sins. Recently, the MBTA disrespected Mr. Spaghetti by refusing to name their new police dog after him. Our tax dollars help subsidize the MBTA and they literally spit in all our faces when they refused to acknowledge my dog. I have lost sleep over this matter and become very sick and missed days of work. I ask that you find the MBTA on twitter and ask why they hate golden retrievers named Mr. Spaghetti. My father worked at the Gap at the Hanover Mall with Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys. It was across from Spencers gifts, a place that is a great resource if you want a velvet blacklight poster of Jimi Hendrix and a sick weed leaf. Thank you so much for your time.
—Kimberly Strubell
My attempts to contact Kimberly Strubell, the author of the Mr. Spaghetti flier, ultimately led me to a Boston-based comedy writer named Dicky Stock. Stock told me he invented Strubell as a fictional persona when he created a Facebook page for her seven years ago, conceiving the character as a “hypersexual surrealist” parody of the kinds of people he was surrounded by growing up on Boston’s South Shore.
“I love the South Shore, but there is an archetype of a person who is sort of trashy—the whole Kimberly Strubell started as a satire of that kind of person. I looked at a lot of people in my life, and took bits and pieces. I thought it would be funny to create a character who is very proud of working at Build-a-Bear,” he said.
Strubell, like many of her fellow Bostonians, enjoys Aerosmith, the Dropkick Murphys, and celebrated local eateries such as the Panda Express in the Prudential Center mall. She says “fuck” a lot, and “tug job,” and signs most of her posts with “hutc or ti,” which, as far as I can tell, stands for “hit up the celly, or text it.” She has nearly 5,000 fans on Facebook, who communicate with each other in Kimberly’s singularly lewd version of New England patois.
All of this is to say Mr. Spaghetti is not a real dog.
Over the years, Stock has created a number of extended storylines for Kimberly, including her battles with local school administrators over her teenage son Kent’s addiction to Mountain Dew and pizza rolls, and her grief over the death of her golden retriever, who perished in a hailstorm last year. Stock told me he saw the MBTA’s open call for dog names on Twitter as an opportunity to memorialize Mr. Spaghetti in real life, and he posted to Kimberly’s Facebook urging her followers to vote for the name. They turned out in droves. After the MBTA chose Hunter instead, he printed out the fliers and began posting them around Allston, the Boston neighborhood where he lives. He said he received photos from Kimberly fans as far away as Atlanta and Portland who’d hung up the fliers in their cities.
Though Mr. Spaghetti may be a figment of Stock’s imagination, the votes for his name were quite real. Which brings us back to the question: Why won’t the MBTA name its police dog Mr. Spaghetti? There’s no provision in the contest that says the name has to come from a real dog, and Mr. Spaghetti seems to have won fair and square.
We’ve reached out to the MBTA Transit Police for comment and will update if and when we hear back.
Matthew Keys, a social media figure who rose to prominence as one of the media sphere’s first great Twitter power users, was just sentenced to two years in prison for helping deface the website of the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed reports.
Keys, who worked as a social media editor for Reuters, was indicted on federal computer fraud charges after it was revealed he’d conspired with members of Anonymous to deface his employer’s website in 2010 (a charge he denies to this day).
The sentence is far less than the 25 years he originally faced, but still an enormous punishment for what was essentially an act of website vandalism—Keys was charged with violating the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which has become synonymous with overreaching prosecution for internet crimes. Keys warned about the power of the CFAA in a post on Medium published this morning:
I am innocent, and I did not ask for this fight. Nonetheless, I hope that our combined efforts help bring about positive change to rules and regulations that govern our online conduct. As I’ve previously wrote about, nobody should face terrorism charges for passing a Netflix username and password. But under today’s law, prosecutors can use their discretion to bring those exact charges against people—including journalists—whenever they see fit. Prosecutors did so in this case. Until the law catches up with the times, there’s no doubt that prosecutors will do it again.
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The standard Lumos lamp includes four different lighting temperatures for different times of the day, as well as five dimming modes, and even a USB charging port for your phone. We see a lot of deals on desk lamps, and $34 is a fantastic price for that feature set.
If only the best will do, the Lumos E1 is also on sale for an all-time low $59. Compared to the standard Lumos, the E1 includes brighter bulbs, an extra color temperature, an extra dimming level, and an extra charging port.
Jackery, despite the silly name, makes many popular and well-reviewed USB battery packs, and their two newest models just got solid launch discounts.
The Jackery Bolt (pictured above) is a little expensive at $20 for 6,000mAh, but it includes a built-in Lightning and microUSB cable, so you won’t have to worry about carrying a spare. If you’re the forgetful type, that’s well worth the price premium.
Meanwhile, the aptly named Jackery Titan is built around 20,100mAh of capacity, and includes both Quick Charge 2.0 and a USB-C port for charging the latest phones and laptops at full speed. It doesn’t include built in cables like the Bolt, but at $36, it’s priced very competitively.
You’ve heard of Automati’s smart driving assistant, but if $80-$100 is too rich for your blood, this cheap OBD2 dongle connects to any iPhone or Android device over Wi-Fi, and can fulfill many of the same functions using various third party apps.
Update: Whoops, seems like this deal is invite only, so you may or may not be eligible to purchase it.
If buying a movie ticket in your town on Fandango costs more than $8 (including Fandango’s convenience fee), you stand to save money with this deal from Groupon.
Unfortunately it isn’t a Blu-ray, but the complete Futurama box set has never been this cheap before. It’s a Gold Box deal though, so grab it quick before it sells out.
The Azores are a set of nine volcanic islands in the North Atlantic. Given that I’m currently visiting them myself, I couldn’t resist covering this deal from Travelzoo.
$899/person gets you six nights in a 4-star hotel, breakfast, whale watching, and multiple guided tours.
This trip goes to the Sao Miguel, the largest island, but for a bit more you can add two or three more islands to the itinerary, which is definitely worth it.
Thermal pools, picturesque vistas, great seafood, and meat cooked for seven hours in thermal vents await.
Newegg’s back at it again with the special PS4 eBay bundles, and this time around you can get a PS4 Battlefront bundle along with copies of Dark Souls III and Fallout 4 for $389. True, that’s $39 more than you’d pay for the Battlefront bundle alone, but you’d probably expect to pay about $100 for the two extra games, so if you want them both, it’s a very solid discount.
If you hurry, Amazon’s selling your undisputed favorite travel mug, the Contigo Autoseal West Loop, for as little as $13, one of the best prices we’ve ever seen, and a solid discount from its usual $18-$20. Just be sure to grab one before the deal cools off.
Whether you’re starting your Philips Hue collection, or just need some extra bulbs, you won’t find a better deal today than this three-bulb starter kit for $135 on Amazon. Even if you already have a Bridge, this would represent a solid discount on the bulbs, which normally sell for $60 each.
Note: This is the first generation starter kit, which features dimmer bulbs compared to the current model, and a bridge that isn’t compatible with Apple HomeKit.
The compact Ninja Master Prep is one of the more versatile kitchen gadgets you can own, and it’s down to $30 today on Amazon, within $3 of its all-time low.
Want to mix up a frozen smoothie? Chop some onions? Puree a few tomatoes? The Ninja is designed for all of that, and includes two different-sized jars and blade sets to handle your disparate kitchen duties. You can’t say that about most blenders.
Despite the low price, the Ninja has a stellar 4.5 star review average on Amazon, which would be impressive for any inexpensive blender, let alone one as versatile as this.
If the power at your house can be a little spotty, this $20 APC backup UPS is designed specifically to keep your modem and router running for up to three hours on battery power, so you won’t have to lose touch with the world.
If you have any old SSDs or hard drives lying around, you can plug them into this docking station to access the contents over USB. If this is going to be a permanent fixture on your desk, it might even be worth buying an SSD just for it, to create an ultra-fast external drive.
If you still haven’t watched Firefly, or just want to own a physical copy for posterity, the complete Blu-ray is back down to $15, the best price of the year. Shiny!
This UtechSmart gaming mouse is perfect for MMO players (or even for general computing tasks), and you can pick it up from Amazon for just $34 today. That’s still a decent chunk of change, but it gets you a 16,400 DPI sensor, Omron switches, dynamic backlighting, and 18 programmable side buttons.
In addition to the requisite dual charging ports and built-in flashlight, the entire top surface of the battery pack is covered with a solar panel. Obviously, a panel that size isn’t going to charge a 12,000mAh battery very quickly, but it’s great for emergencies or camping trips where you just need to eke out a little more juice.
If you don’t already have a multi-port USB charger plugged in everywhere you spend a significant amount of time, there’s nothing stopping you today. Just use promo code VXMOQ74S at checkout to knock this 6-port model down to $12.
Unlike smartphone lens add-ons that require a special case or a specific phone model, Aukey’s 3-in-1 kit uses a clamp to attach to your device, which means it should work with virtually any smartphone. Once that clip’s in place, you get to choose from three different lenses: Fisheye, wide angle, and macro. Several of Amazon reviewers have uploaded sample photos and videos, and they look pretty great to my eyes, particularly the close-up macros.
You never want to be in a situation where you need a solar and hand crank-powered weather radio with a flashlight and USB port for charging your phone, but when you can get one for $18, you probably should buy it just in case.
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