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Video of Ohio Teen Kicking Cat Goes Viral, Leads to His Arrest

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Look, kids. If you're going to do something that is morally reprehensible (not to mention illegal) maybe don't film it?

Eighteen-year-old Trevonte Mitchell didn't exactly get that message. The Akron, Ohio teenager, who the Daily Mail refers to as a "thug," was arrested yesterday after admitting to kicking a cat on a viral video, according to police.

The video was originally posted on friend of Mitchell's Facebook page, but the footage later made its way to the Ohio Animal Abuser List's community Facebook page, where local police caught wind of it.

The cat landed on its feet but Mitchell, was charged with cruelty to an animal, didn't. Captain Daniel Zampelli told NewsNet5 the teen will likely receive a fine and community service instead of jail time.


Driving the Tech Elite to Work Is a Miserable, Thankless Job

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Driving the Tech Elite to Work Is a Miserable, Thankless Job

Tech buses don't need anymore bad press. Their mere existence in San Francisco has been enough to make them the most hated bus system in America. But a new report is certain to drag their reputation down even further: companies are paying their bus drivers obscenely low wages and forcing them to work 15.5 hour days, six of which are unpaid.

The report from USA Today focuses of Facebook's shuttle bus drivers. In interviews, their operators describe the cut-rate pay and miserable work conditions they have to endure so Facebookers can have a cool, wifi-enabled ride to campus.

Facebook's drivers, who are contracted through the SFO Shuttle Bus Company, earn just $18 an hour—substantially less than $6,000 a month Facebook pays its high school interns.

And the drivers' situation is made worse by all the unpaid time they must spend at work. According to two of the drivers interviewed by USA Today, employees are "held hostage" for six hours in the middle of the day when the shuttles aren't running, with contractual obligations forcing shuttle operators to remain close to the bus's parking lot.

[Jimmy Maerina] says he makes $18 an hour for nine hours of driving. Each paycheck covers his family's basic living expenses — mortgage, utilities, health insurance, a modest contribution to a retirement account — but not much more.

"We are just barely making it," Maerina said.

The unpaid blocks are due to "split shifts" that are required of workers. Because Silicon Valley's tech shuttles only run before and after the normal work day, drivers have to chauffeur Facebook employees both during the morning and evening commutes.

"My day starts at 5:30 and ends at 11 o'clock in the morning. Then we come back in the afternoon at 5 o'clock and ends at 9."

"This split shift is really killing us. I have a six hour split in-between [shifts] and I don't know what to do with myself during that time."

The drivers are not supposed to sleep on the techie comfort coaches between shifts. So many shuttle bus drivers resort to sleeping in their own cars, covering their vehicles to get some shade.

Facebook hasn't completely turned a blind eye to the plight of their bus operators. The $191 billion company recently agreed to chip in an extra 75 cents per hour for the drivers.

"That doesn't even buy you a soda," one driver said. "It's not good."

Despite their raise, the operators are still forced to abide by arbitrary rules:

With heavy traffic and tight schedules, drivers say they rarely have time to take a break, not even to take a sip of water — which they are not permitted to drink on the bus — or to go to the bathroom.

Loading your employees up with perks while your drivers sleep in their cars probably doesn't come as a surprise. Silicon Valley's top blowhards have been quick to criticize public transportation workers fighting for wage increases in the past. Why would they behave any different on their own campus?

Screenshot: USA Today

Trolls Who Terrorized Zelda Williams Force Twitter to Revise Policies

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Trolls Who Terrorized Zelda Williams Force Twitter to Revise Policies

Twitter executives promised to improve their user policies after grief-stricken Zelda Williams was harassed online about her father's suicide earlier this week.

A day after she posted a beautiful letter on Tumblr to her late father, Robin Williams, Twitter trolls began spamming Zelda with "cruel and unnecessary comments."

Zelda pleaded with her Twitter followers to report terrorizing bullies, who were apparently sending the 25-year-old morbid photos. Those accounts were eventually suspended, prompting Twitter to reexamine its policies.

Del Harvey, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement released yesterday to media outlets, including The Washington Post, that going forward they would not permit abusive behavior like Zelda endured.

We have suspended a number of accounts related to this issue for violating our rules and we are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one. This includes expanding our policies regarding self-harm and private information, and improving support for family members of deceased users.

The changes, however, as some critics point out, will not stop Twitter trolls from simply creating new accounts.

[image via AP]

Project Runway Open Thread, Week 4

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Project Runway Open Thread, Week 4

Pondering your next move for the evening? Well, don't just stand there, endlessly rubbing your chin—join us as we chat our way through tonight's episode of Project Runway. You'll have fun, and your chin will thank you!

The show starts at 9 pm Eastern on Lifetime, and the chat party happens in the comments below this post. And if the party's anything like our last one was, it will be chock full of wit and cleverness—as this selection of a few of my favorite comments from last week will attest. Here are a few other moments worth noting about our last get-together:

  • Otterbird won the Sherlock Holmes award by correctly deducing, only three minutes into the episode, that Angela would be eliminated based on her teary-eyed appearance in a commentary clip (which was apparently filmed soon after the runway-judging ended).
  • I learned a new word, thanks to laurie305: "nagl," meaning "not a good look." This could be useful — we've seen a hell of a lot of nagl already this season.
  • We have a new nickname for Korina: "Joker Mouth." (Another possibility was "Julia Roberts Mouth," but that takes too long to say.)
  • GoOnWithoutMe came up with a name for the delight we feel when witnessing the anguish other designers experience when the judges inexplicably favor Sandhya's designs: "Sandhyafreude."

And here are a few things worth noting about tonight's episode:

  • It will feature the following baffling design challenge: "Revamp men's vintage suits to create looks for the modern woman." Perhaps the show's challenge designers have been smoking some of the judges' crack?
  • Tim Gunn will admonish a designer to "watch the boobage," while Nina will refer to one runway look as "Super Vagina." Such cards with the female-body-part quips, these people!
  • The guest judge will be an 18-year-old "Youtube celebrity" Bethany Mota. Tonight's episode will commemorate her 15th minute of fame.

OK, it's party time, people. I'll see you the comments!

[Image via Lifetime]

San Diego Women Held Hostage By Cat

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San Diego Women Held Hostage By Cat

A cat named Cuppy was a beloved family pet for about 14 years. But after holding his owners hostage in their bedroom earlier this week, his days at the residence might be numbered.

Southern California's Chula Vista police received a 911 phone call at 4 a.m. on Aug. 12 from a distraught mother and daughter who were forced to take refuge in a bedroom from a very pissed off cat.

"He's just a ball of fury I guess," Karen Yarger, a neighbor, told KGTV-TV.

According to the 911 dispatchers, the women tried to leave their barricaded bedroom, but Cuppy wouldn't have it.

The cat eventually left the premises when a pair of police officers—who were apparently having a slow night—rescued the family by "softly" calling Cuppy's name and cajoling him to leave.

It's not clear what made the once happily domesticated Cuppy mad.

People Are Getting Along in Ferguson Now That the Local Cops Are Gone

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People Are Getting Along in Ferguson Now That the Local Cops Are Gone

After a particularly harrowing night of tear gas, rubber bullets and false arrests, a relative calm has settled over Ferguson, Mo., thanks in large part to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which wrested control from the local police force earlier today.

The tension reached a fever pitch last night when police began to launch dramatic offensives against gatherings of peaceful protesters and the reporters covering the conflict.

But since Missouri Governor Jay Nixon's Thursday afternoon press conference announcing the command change, led by Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, the protesters and cops have, for the most part, laid aside their differences:

Not only did Johnson march with the protesters, but he vowed to not blockade the street, to set up a media staging center, and to ensure that residents' rights to assemble and protest were not infringed upon. Officers working crowd control, he said, have been told they must take off their gas masks.

"When I see a young lady cry because of fear of this uniform, that's a problem." Johnson said. "We've got to solve that."

Johnson, who is black, told the Guardian, "I know a lot of them... We have to be reflective of our community."

"It means a lot to me personally that we break this cycle of violence," he later told the AP.

Now, according to Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery—who was arrested along with a Huffington Post reporter for no apparent reason yesterday—protesters may actually be enjoying the police presence. Johnson, who marched along with city residents earlier this afternoon, was also spotted hugging and kissing protesters.

"This is what our community was like before a child was killed in our streets," Jerroll Sanders, a protest organizer, told the Washington Post. "But what we've seen is a change in the policing approach. The aggression was never brought on by us."

[images via AP, Twitter]

Will the Federal Reserve Still Be Evil With This Nice Woman In Charge?

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Will the Federal Reserve Still Be Evil With This Nice Woman In Charge?

For the first time in over fifty years, the Federal Reserve is now chaired by someone who speaks candidly, often, and with real concern about the plight of America's poor. Ron Paul has called her "very dangerous," unsurprisingly, but The New Yorker and The Guardian seem to like her. Who's correct?

Oh. Also, she is a lady. The new chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, is the first female human to ever have the job. She's also, as you may have heard, a millionaire, because unlike you she is "good with money." Yellen was born in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn to working parents, a doctor and an elementary school teacher, until a tragic accident necessitated that Yellen's mother begin chauffeuring her father around for his medical practice.

As Yellen told the New Yorker, "I think the experience of the Depression greatly influenced the way they thought about the world."

Yellen's mother played the stock market, and under her example Janet Yellen became a very successful academic economist with a nice little nest egg of million-dollar stock funds and bond funds, plus $15-to-$50k in collectible stamps.

Nicholas Lemann's profile of Yellen late last month in the New Yorker is full of these gentle, endearing anecdotes. It's decidedly warm, if (perhaps) overly generous:

[Yellen] went to Brown University, thinking she would pursue math or science (her only sibling, John Yellen, is the director of the archeology program at the National Science Foundation), but she wound up majoring in economics, which she talks about as if it were one of the helping professions. "What I really liked about economics was that it provided a rigorous, analytical way of thinking about issues that have great impact on people's lives," Yellen told me. "Economics is a subject that really relates to core aspects of human well-being, and there's a methodology for thinking about these things. This was a very appealing combination to me. Market systems are capable of massive breakdowns that can result in long, devastating periods of high unemployment. And I felt that economists had really learned something about how to address that."

So cute, right? Janet Yellen is like the aunt who gave you that savings bond or Nestlé® stock for your 12th birthday.

As Fed chair, maybe she will actually tame "the Creature from Jekyll Island," turning it into a nice Maurice Sendak children's book monster. Not so much in the way that libertarian anti-Fed paranoids would like—i.e. by simply "Ending the Fed," or at least curbing its "license to print money" and thus devaluing our precious, precious dollars—but by sticking to her expressed desire to wield the Fed's powers toward the cutting of unemployment rates. Sorry, John Birch Society conspiracists, Ron and Rand Paul supporters, and all you Austrian school devotees. It's not like the Fed could ever do anything right by you.

Anyway:

Without question, Yellen was a better choice for Fed chair than the total jerk that was widely believed to be Obama's first choice, Larry Summers: a derivatives trading- and deregulation-happy garbage person, who has never looked like the good guy ever, except for that one time, while president of Harvard, when he was pitted against the Winklevoss twins.

People have gone back and forth on what to make of Yellen's prior policy stances. In the 1990s when appointed to be the chair of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, she backed a bunch of then-popular "free market" economic policies, like the repeal of Glass-Steagall, NAFTA, and a new metric for Social Security that was intended to lower payments meted out to seniors. No one really associates her with any of this stuff, though, because as Lemann notes, "Yellen doesn't leave footprints." Instead, she's developed a great reputation for being "over-prepared," a conscientious listener, and someone with a talent for quietly building consensus. She also predicted the housing bubble under Bush, and pushed for preventative measures to address the consequences. Good on her.

But, while these suggest mostly decent leadership credentials, the Federal Reserve needs someone with a little more moxie and a little more fight right now. In the wake of the financial collapse and the passage of Dodd-Frank, the Fed has now been given the onerous task of making sure that all the "too big to fail" financial actors either scale down or establish actionable liquidation plans—"living wills" that will ensure that there are mechanisms in place to prevent a major failure at one of these firms from dragging down the whole economy (again).

Dodd-Frank gave the Fed some pretty mighty powers to enforce this provision, including the power to do some Teddy Roosevelt-style trust busting, but since its enactment in 2012, it doesn't seem to have been flexed all that much.

And, judging from this recent exchange between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Janet Yellen—at a July Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing—it does not sound like she's been particularly aggressive on this issue during her first six months on the job:

Warren points out that Lehman had $639 billion in assets at the time of the 2008 meltdown and that—today—JPMorgan is even more of a frightening behemoth: $2.5 trillion in assets and 3,391 subsidiaries (15 times the number that Lehman had).

Even if you peel back and try to make some handicap adjustments for the usual Senate committee hearing grandstanding, this exchange looks just terrible for Yellen. Multiple times she talks about her understanding of Dodd-Frank and her interpretation of the law as being "iterative" and the Fed's giving "feedback" to the big banks. She speaks as if enforcing these government requirements were like running the outpatient group therapy program at a methadone clinic. In short, she's being the wrong kind of nice, to the wrong people, at the wrong time.

Is she secretly being tougher behind the scenes?

Sherrod Brown, a Democratic senator from Ohio who (along with Warren, frankly) was instrumental in getting Yellen this job, intimated to the New Yorker that Yellen was much more direct about the scope of the problem in private conversations. That's something.

We're going to get a good sense of things pretty soon. Next week, at a global central bankers' conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Yellen is scheduled to give a keynote address and is expected to make the case for her policy of focusing on unemployment, keeping interest rates low, and worrying about any inflation issues later. Reports are that Yellen has totally disinvited most of the big Wall Street names, a move that's either a genius method of keeping their influence out, or a sign of an alarmingly non-confrontational politesse, maybe even cowardice.

If it turns out that Yellen is just too damn nice to wield her newly ordained power under Dodd-Frank, and bust some skulls over at Goldman Sachs, or to stick to her policy guns, then (ha, ha; I'm gonna write this.) Ron Paul may be correct.

This lady could be very dangerous.

[Photo: Charles Dharapak for AP]

To contact the author of this post, email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key here.

Rallies for Michael Brown Spread Across the Country Tonight

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Rallies for Michael Brown Spread Across the Country Tonight

Carrying signs that read "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," protesters numbering over 1,000 strong peacefully marched in New York's Times Square and across over 90 cities earlier this evening to call attention the police shooting of unarmed Missouri black teenager Michael Brown.

Since Brown was shot dead last weekend in Ferguson, Mo., rallies in his honor have spread across the country:

In New York City, thousands of protesters met at Union Square and walked through Times Square in honor of both Brown and Eric Garner, 43, who died last month in police custody after being placed in a chokehold by an officer.

"It's not just Ferguson. Police brutality is pervasive. It's happening in so many cities," a community activist known online as Feminista Jones told USA TODAY.

Early on in the protest, WCBS 880's Monica Miller reported that one person was taken into custody, and news of the arrest soon spread through the rally, which eventually dispersed.

Newsweek reports that a total of four people were arrested tonight at the New York City rally.

[image via AP]


Grandmother in Critical Condition After Drinking Tea Laced with Lye

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Grandmother in Critical Condition After Drinking Tea Laced with Lye

Jan Harding and her husband stopped at a Dickey's Barbecue Pit in South Jordan, Utah last Sunday for lunch. The 76-year-old grandmother filled her cup with sweat tea from the restaurant's self-serve drink station. After taking a drink, she immediately spit it out, telling her husband, "I think I just drank acid."

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Harding apparently drank tea laced with a lye-based cleaner commonly used to degrease deep fryers. (Lye is also the active ingredient in most drain cleaners.) A store employee had confused the chemical with sugar, and mixed six cups of the powdered lye cleaner into the tea.

"It's disturbing that this kind of toxic, poisonous material would be in the food prep area and somehow find its way into the iced tea vat," Paxton Guymon, the Harding's lawyer, said in a statement Thursday. "I don't know how something like that can happen."

Harding's condition, Guymon said in the statement, has not improved since she was taken to the hospital Sunday. She is apparently unable to speak.

From the Associated Press:

The restaurant has remained open since the incident, said Jeff Oaks, Food Protection Bureau manager at the Salt Lake County Health Department. His office inspected the establishment Monday and found all chemicals properly labeled and separated from food items.

The health department is awaiting results of the criminal investigation to determine if it should issue any violations. It's unlikely the restaurant would be fined or shut down, Oaks said. The department focuses on education and prevention over punitive measures, he said.

South Jordan Police Cpl. Sam Winkler told the Salt Lake Tribune that authorities are working with the restaurant's management—pulling security footage and interviewing employees—to figure out what happened. Winkler told the Associated Press that they believe the incident to have been an accident. Harding was the only victim, and apparently the first person to drink sweet tea at the restaurant that day; employees immediately poured the remaining chemical-laced tea out after.

[Screengrab via Fox13]

Facebook Donates $10,000 to Anti-Gay Crusader

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Facebook Donates $10,000 to Anti-Gay Crusader

On Facebook's diversity page, the company celebrates their gay users, proclaiming "we want you to feel comfortable being your true, authentic self." Mark Zuckerberg himself has shown up to San Francisco's Pride Parade, riding in a faux cable car down Market Street. However, when it comes to political donations, Facebook has no problem giving $10,000 to a man described as "the face legal opposition to marriage equality in America."

According to financial disclosures obtained by QSaltLake, Facebook's growing lobbying arm donated $10,000 to Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes this past May.

Reyes has irked LGBT activists for his aggressive stance against gay rights. After being sworn in as Attorney General this past December, the first issue he tackled was "the defense of marriage," saying his office would be "willing to spend whatever it takes" to defend Utah's gay marriage ban, which had been struck down by a US District Court earlier that month.

Facebook's shareholders have previously expressed concern over the company's backing of anti-LGBT politicians. According to ThinkProgress, 41 percent of the company's PAC money "went to politicians who voted against LGBT rights." Shareholders have accused the social network of "supporting politicians whose voting records directly contrast the company's stated public policy priorities, and may undermine the company's business model." Those shareholders have also called upon Facebook to adopt a "public political contributions policy" to improve transparency.

In a statement to QSaltLake, a Facebook spokesperson says that Reyes' positions on LGBT rights were secondary to his pro-business bent:

Facebook has a strong record on LGBT issues and that will not change, but we make decisions about which candidates to support based on the entire portfolio of issues important to our business, not just one. A contribution to a candidate does not mean that we agree with every policy or position that candidate takes. We made this donation for the same reason we've donated to Attorneys General on the opposite side of this issue – because they are committed to fostering innovation and an open Internet.

Activists are unhappy with Facebook's justification. LGBT supporters have begun petitioning the company, demanding Facebook "publicly decry this bigotry" and "make an equal or greater contribution" to Reyes' pro-gay opponent.

Facebook Donates $10,000 to Anti-Gay Crusader

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Photos: Sharon Hwang and LGBTQ@Facebook, h/t SFist

Harry Styles Proposed to a Fan on Stage and It Wasn't Even You

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Harry Styles Proposed to a Fan on Stage and It Wasn't Even You

Harry Styles, little bescarfed hair boy of your dreams, joke proposed to a fan dressed as a bride (not you) on stage at a performance in Philadelphia earlier this week. I'm so sorry!

Listen, before you read on, do you want to maybe go home and lie down? Ask your boss if you can leave early for the day. (If she asks why, just let her know that your life is fucking ruined and you need a little time.) From the Mirror:

The teen pin-up popped the question to the lucky lady who was dressed as a bride at the band's gig in Philadelphia after he picked her out of the sell-out crowd and joked he didn't want her efforts to go to waste.

The Mirror reports that Harry asked the audience, "I heard there was a girl here in a wedding dress...Is there a girl here in a wedding dress? Now I feel bad letting this go to waste, so, what's your name?" Oh my god. Why are you still reading?! Please don't watch the vine of what happened next, embedded in your enemy's tweet:

Haha, uh. First of all, congratulations, of course, to Priya on completing all of her life goals. Second: Priya, who was threatening to kill you and spill soda on your dress?! Girl, you do not have to forgive those monsters. You go ahead and wear that wedding dress all around Philadelphia, if you want. Marry Rocky!

Anyway. Sorry about the Priya stuff. Maybe next time he'll propose to you for real? Life can take you in so many different Direction(s).

[image via Getty]

Here's Alison Brie in the Awful TV Version of Not Another Teen Movie

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Before she broke out in Mad Men and Community, Alison Brie starred as "Muffy the Vampire Slayer" in the failed pilot for a shitty teen TV show parody. And Jennifer Lawrence was there, too.

Not Another High School Show was a 2006 attempt to adapt Not Another Teen Movie into a Comedy Central series, spoofing shows like Dawson's Creek. Mysteriously, it never got picked up. We may never know why, because NATM was such a beloved classic, adored by critics and audiences alike.

Watch for a pre-Hunger-Games J-Law as another high school student, and H. Jon Benjamin (of Archer and Bob's Burgers fame) as the obligatory murdered janitor.

Coincidentally, Benjamin's Freak Show was one of the shows Comedy Central chose over this one during that pilot season.

[H/T Vulture]

Lightning Destroyed the Zephyrometer in a Fireball Yesterday

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Lightning Destroyed the Zephyrometer in a Fireball Yesterday

The New Zealand capital's famed Zephyrometer, a weathery sculpture that stands a little over 100 feet tall, met its demise after a thunderstorm struck Wellington on Thursday and a bolt of lightning destroyed the sculpture in a fireball, hurling its fiery remains onto the street below.

According to its Wikipedia page, the 11-year-old sculpture told passers-by the speed and direction of the wind, essentially making it a fancy weather vane. The fiberglass Zephyrometer, which derives its name from the word "zephyr," meaning a "very slight or gentle wind," didn't stand a chance when the bolt of lightning knocked the wind out of it.

AccuWeather reports that the storm also produced 62 MPH winds at the city's airport around the time the installation got fried. As the northern hemisphere makes its slow transition from summer to fall, the southern hemisphere is making the volatile switch from winter to spring.

From one Vane to another: so long, Zephyrometer.

[Image of the Zephyrometer in happier times by Keith Miller via Flickr]

TV Commercials Use Cute Kids To Exploit Panic Over Technology FOMO

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TV Commercials Use Cute Kids To Exploit Panic Over Technology FOMO

Children make great props for gadget commercials. They're cute—like lil mini grown-ups with years before the regret sets in. They also say the darndest slogans. But recent barrage of precocious tots in tech ads puts a cheery face on latent panic currently hovering around threat level teal: our inability to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

On the one hand, a little girl working in a startup garage yelling "Grandpa, you don't wan to be an intern forever!" is just a wink at the teenage millionaires of the tech world. Perhaps Xfinity's ad men are even offering subversive commentary on the loss of childhood aimlessness. On the other hand, the unrelenting onslaught of new devices means we'll all be that grandpa sooner than we think.

Same goes with the recent Amazon Fire Phone commercial where a faux-wizened whiz kid says, "I've been on this Earth nine years, I've never seen anything like it." Get it?? Because he's only 9-years-old? AND YOU WILL NEVER EVER KEEP UP WITH HIM. The camera lingers on the bewildered young-ish woman with her mouth agape just long enough to make you wonder if Millennials aren't already obsolete.

The corollary to not keeping apace with tech trends is being left out of imagined startup riches. Again, kids are a good way to terrify TV watchers with impunity. This ad doesn't imply widening income gap exacerbated by technological fluency, the message is: Fuckkkk, I better buy that phone.

Or switch to that carrier?

Guess it's better than selling smartphones as a way to make your kid shut up.

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Image via YouTube]

You Can All Stop Doing the Ice Bucket Challenge Now

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The ice bucket challenge, it should be clear by now, is not about charity so much as showing your social network how charitable and fun-loving you are. And what accomplishes that more fully than donning a superhero outfit and tasering yourself into a kiddie pool?

Yes, about a week after the dump-cold-water-on-your-head-or-donate-$100-to-ALS-research viral game first reared its head on your news feed, we've reached the peak of the form. "Everything you do, I can do it better," self-styled "citizen superhero" and Gawker-styled "idiot weirdo" Phoenix Jones says at the beginning of the video above. And he's right. So let this be the end.

After a sad-looking friend dumps the water on Phoenix Jones's head, for reasons unknown to anyone but Phoenix Jones, another person shoots him with a stun gun, and he falls backward into even more water. It looks painful. But what a spectacle!

"Wow," you're thinking to yourself. "He must be really passionate about ALS." And maybe he is. He did give the requisite $100, after all. What have you done?

[h/t BroBible]


Zen Koans Explained: "Everything Is Best"

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Zen Koans Explained: "Everything Is Best"

Drudgery makes a mockery of mankind's natural enthusiasm for life. The boy becomes a bent old man; the girl becomes a weathered crone; the fresh pasta is ground down to paste. Paste makes a fool of the child. It never fulfills its purpose. It smears.

The koan: "Everything Is Best"

When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

"Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer.

"Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best."

At these words Banzan became enlightened.

The enlightenment: "Everything... is... best," whispered Banzan, gazing off into the distance. The butcher overheard him.

"Not everything," the butcher clarified. "Just this meat here. It's all the same."

At these words Banzan said, "Shit."

This has been "Zen Koans Explained." A hook that curves to the highway.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

Worth a Scroll: The TSA's Instagram Account

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Worth a Scroll: The TSA's Instagram Account

There is perhaps no better microcosm of how easily the internet can throw together seemingly disparate images and have them make total sense than the Transportation Security Administration's Instagram account, where photos of confiscated weapons and weed are juxtaposed with snapshots of the adorable dogs that find them.

The TSA's Instagram account has amassed more than 140,000 followers since being created last June. The account currently follows 17 others: the Instagrams' of other American government agencies (NASA, the White House, the Postal Service) and select airports (Dulles, Gatwick, Hamburg, Indianapolis and LAX). It is, for all intents and purposes, an obligatory PR move—having an Instagram has risen to the marked status of Necessary for any brand, business, and branch of government at all interested in properly existing on the internet.

The art of the TSA's Instagram is beholden both to the rigidness of the uploader's art direction—never using filters, only posting photos of confiscated weapons and drugs and dogs employed by the agency—and the Instagram app itself. Yes, you could look at the photos on a computer, but most people look at Instagrammed photos on their phone, in the official app, one at a time, scrolling through a curated feed. Owing to these conventions, and like so much on the web, the TSA's Instagram account occasionally stumbles onto brilliance, hilarity, and profundity. (See also: Twitter bots.)

To wit, here is a photo of a firearm discovered at Palm Beach International Airport from July 13 of this year:

The account's next upload? Gunner, the "explosives detection canine" who works with his owner at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska:

Next? This "stun cane" taken from a passenger's bag in Tampa. The caption politely reminds you (the reminders are always polite, gentle nudges to please not bring weapons with you onto planes with other human beings and their children, if you could), "While stun guns are permitted in checked baggage, they are prohibited in carry-on bags. You should check state and local laws concerning stun guns prior to traveling."

The account is rife with cute dogs interpolated with strange, sometimes terrifying weapons. This gun was taken from a bag at the airport in Austin:

And then to lighten the mood:

From the photo's caption:

#TSAOnTheJob: Honey is seen here with her handler, Eryka Stevens, at the Seattle-Tacoma (#SEA) cargo facility. Honey is one of hundreds of #TSA explosive detection canines that work around the nation daily to keep our transportation systems safe.

A weapon, a dog named Honey, and then:

THROWING STAR!!!!

The potential multivalence of the absurdism at work here is impressive: While it's apparent that the account's uploader (uploaders?) more or less sticks to an innocuous script of documenting what the TSA encounters every day on the job (guns, drugs, dogs), what's not so clear is intent, and that's what makes the account interesting. Are they aware of how funny it looks to put photos of dogs between photos of crazy weapons? Is this person purposefully creating these juxtapositions between cute and carnal? Or is it literally just a straight, I-upload-em-as-I-see-em setup?

I am inclined to believe that whomever is in charge of running the TSA's Instagram is at least partially aware of the photos' sequencing, or has at least realized, a year into the account's life, that there is indeed a method to the madness of ephemera and there's a latent performative nature to all social media.

The account has been posting more photos and more frequently, and has been especially active this summer. I like that the dog photos are now sometimes turned into trading cards:

But after turning it over in my head for a bit and deliberating internally some more, I have decided that this is the best photo from the TSA's Instagram thus far:

#TSACatch: Any item resembling an explosive – whether it is real or not - can cause significant delays in screening, while #TSA explosives detection professionals determine if the item is a threat. This modified grenade was discovered at the Salt Lake City #SLC airport and was eventually determined to be as harmless as a fly.

What endears me to this specific photo, and perhaps most social media, is the labored, terrible play on words in the caption. Like in improv comedy, so much of the internet's humor is having the boldness to fail fantastically, knowing you'll live again to say something even worse. This caption indicates, if ever so slightly, that the person (or persons) behind the account are in on the joke, too.

[Images via Instagram]

Woman Claims Darren Wilson Told Her To "Shut The Fuck Up"

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In a live interview with CNN's Don Lemon today, a woman recounts an alleged interaction she had with Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Mo. police officer identified today as Michael Brown's shooter.

The woman tells Lemon that while trying to clean her eyes at a convenience store after being maced last month, Wilson allegedly told her to "shut the fuck up" and "sit the fuck down." Lemon did not ask the woman's name. Their interview:

Woman: I was maced and I had come up to QuickTrip because they said I could use their sink. So I was trying to clean out my eyes with some water and one of the employees told me to go get some milk, because that would help. So as I was pouring milk in my eyes, the officers had come in and told me to get out.

Lemon: When was this?

Woman: This was like a month ago. I came outside and I was trying to pour milk in my eyes and Wilson told me if I poured milk in my eyes, I was going to be arrested. And I was trying to tell him that my eyes were burning because I was maced, but he told me to 'Shut the F up.' So, another man told me to get in my car and turn the air and put my face in front of the vents, so that's what I did.

Lemon: So were you arrested? What happened?

Woman: No, I wasn't arrested. When I got in my car and turned the air on and put my face in front of the vent. Wilson made me get out of the car and sit on the concrete and he took all my information and ran my name. And I was still trying to pour the milk in my eyes because I couldn't see, and he's telling me to 'shut the F up' and 'sit the f down' and I was looking at his name tag and I was telling myself that I would never forget who he was and what he did to me. And I prayed on it and I asked God to get revenge on him and I'm sorry this is the way it happened, but what's done in the dark always come to the light, and I saw the news this morning—

Lemon: But you're OK? Everything is OK?

Woman: I'm OK now. And I saw the news this morning when they released his name. I knew exactly who he was and I know who he is right now.

[H/T Colorlines]

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez Went to Bible Class, May Be in Love

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Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez Went to Bible Class, May Be in Love

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez's on-again, off-again romance—that which gives us something to dream of at night and something to wake for in the morning—seems to be on-again. Or maybe it was quickly on-again, and has resumed being off-again? Hard to say!

Bieber and Gomez were seen at a bible class in Los Angeles on Wednesday night and, according to a source who spoke with the Daily Mail, "sat next to each other while partaking in Bible study and seemed very close." Ooh lala!

Bieber then Instagrammed this photo with the caption, "Right now, everything else is a blur":

Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez Went to Bible Class, May Be in Love

And promptly deleted it, as he tends to do.

Why did he delete it? Are our favorite perfect love birds singing their bird songs together, or apart? Should we be praying to thank God for making things right, or praying to beg him to put it all back together?

Right now, everything is a blur!

[image via DailyMail]

Chief: Cop Who Killed Michael Brown Wasn't Aware He Was a Suspect

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Chief: Cop Who Killed Michael Brown Wasn't Aware He Was a Suspect

Darren Wilson, the Ferguson cop who shot and killed Michael Brown, did not know Brown was a suspect in a shoplifting case at the time, police chief Thomas Jackson said at a press conference today. The revelation raises an obvious, troubling question: why did the department release footage and an incident report from the unrelated alleged robbery this morning?

How, other than as a character attack on the dead teenager, is that information relevant, if it didn't inform the stop? Jackson couldn't say, apparently, telling reporters only that it had been requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

Jackson confirmed that the alleged robbery wasn't related to Brown's initial interaction with police, adding that he and a friend were stopped because "because they were walking down the middle of the street blocking traffic," the Associated Press reports.

Twitter user @TheePharoah, who claims to have witnessed the shooting, wrote that Brown was "running" when he was killed, and that police may have hit him with as many as seven bullets.

In a video apparently taken at the scene of Brown's death, onlookers say they heard claims that police "shot him some more while he was on the ground," and that he "he had his hands up and everything."

Where is the incident report from Michael Brown's killing?

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