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Religious Lunatic: "If You Don't Spank Your Kid, Jesus Certainly Will"

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Religious Lunatic: "If You Don't Spank Your Kid, Jesus Certainly Will"

All this talk about Adrian Peterson and corporal punishment has some conservatives going batty. They got whacked and turned out just fine! Also, if you don't hurt your children, they will grow up bereft of responsibility and Jesus Christ will plunge them into a lake of fire.

So says John Nantz. Do you not know John Nantz? He is a writer for "Town Hall," a safe space for oppressed fascists. He also is a graduate of Pat Robertson's religious law school, the alma mater of family values hero Bob McDonnell, and "has served in the law enforcement community for 16 years." When John Nantz is not "hiking and piling up mounds of brass at the shooting range," he is penning posts like today's missive, "If You Don't Spank Your Kid, Jesus Certainly Will."

Can you imagine Jesus spanking a child? Like, really imagine it? Few people have. There's a natural explanation for this. Who does do all the corporal punishment in the Gospels?

Religious Lunatic: "If You Don't Spank Your Kid, Jesus Certainly Will"

Nevertheless, Nantz has an argument:

Prominent egg-heads have opined ad nauseam on Adrian Peterson's recent arrest on charges of child abuse. As usual, progressives have seized this opportunity to besmirch a time-honored and Biblical practice—corporal punishment. This shouldn't surprise us, since progressives abhor the notion of personal responsibility. And, why not? The entire progressive edifice is built on the foundation of unbridled hedonism and man as his own chief deity.

Parents have employed corporal punishment for millennia because it is the most direct means of teaching children a fundamental moral tenet—responsibility for one's choices.

The "it's not my fault" feel-goodism of the licentious left "didn't work in the Garden of Eden," Nantz says, likening the distribution of punitive pain to "the momentary pain of shoving a person out of the path of a speeding car."

This is, in fact, a pretty solid strain running throughout traditional evangelical Christianity in America—you know, Proverbs 13:24 and all that. Which is weird, since it's a complete inversion of everything Jesus Christ seems to have stood for. Let's have a quick theological exploration, shall we?

Christ's life and preaching would seem to indicate a skepticism of worldly authorities who purport to represent God's laws on earth. When met with violence, he says, "Turn the other cheek." When you see an injustice, he says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

The overarching lesson is that all but Christ himself fall short of sinlessness; if all humans are worthy of harsh judgment by the Lord, what right do any of them have to lord over their fellow humans as if they are perfect? They don't, unless you subscribe to an absurd patriarchal secular glitch in modern conservative evangelicalism: God is a father, and so the father should be like God to his wife and kids, jealous angry wrath and all. Nantz nails this:

Ideally, the family should represent the church and Christ's relationship to her. In this way, familial relationships are to be governed by the same kind of love that Christ manifests... If parents don't discipline their children, God's moral order certainly will. But, the lessons could be bought at a terrible price.

Yes, well, Christ was the redeeming son, not the jealous father, and he didn't go around beating people (although he did flip a couple of tables once, for dramatic effect). But all conservative Christianity today is based on this fundamental bully-man-centered deviation from the Gospel—you can't even call it a misunderstanding, because you have to be willingly sexist or stupid to reserve for yourself the judging wrath of God.

Oh, sure, Nantz and his ilk hide behind Hebrews 12:

For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

These are not the words of Christ. We don't know whose words they are, though they're often attributed to the apostle Paul, who made a cottage industry of putting words into Jesus' mouth. But in any case, they exhort readers to discipline their children, not beat them. Nantz decries the left's "flood of Freudian babble," but in automatically equating discipline with laying hands on a kid, he's committing one hell of an unconscious error—swapping his own urges in for God's teachings.

"Sometimes," Nantz says, "the only remedy for impish pride is the experience of a moment of humility." As a Christian and a progressive, I agree. Maybe Nantz and the ministry he represents should take some responsibility for themselves and humbly acknowledge that "progressive irrationality and moral perfidy" could never do as much damage as the evil urge to rationalize one's own violent impulses as godly.

[Image: Shutterstock/Silva Vikmane]


Nashville's Juliette Sings Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Then Goes Crazy

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ABC really hyped up the fact that there would be live performances on the Nashville season three premiere. This performance of Hayden Panettiere singing Patsy Cline's "Crazy'" was not live, however. Because there's a limit to how much grave-turning we can put poor Patsy through.

And look. Hayden Panettiere is actually a pretty good singer! And she's most definitely the best thing on Nashville (or at least in a three-way tie with 1) the show's truly excellent music; 2) Connie Britton's hair.) So it's kind of a set up to have her take on beloved and iconic singer Patsy Cline's most beloved and iconic song while her character Juliette Barnes is up for the lead in a Patsy Cline biopic. Would Juliette/Hayden Panettiere kill it while auditioning for a Tanya Tucker biopic? Sure. But hasn't Patsy been through enough? Let our country music legends rest in peace! And let our talented young actresses avoid unfavorable comparisons to legendary singers!

This is how Hayden and Juliette collectively feel about it all.

The only thing that will adequately redeem this incident is if the producers decide to take the Patsy Cline biopic to Broadway, and Nashville somehow morphs into the secret third season of Smash.

Other big-time things happened in the premiere, too, if you're keeping track of such matters.

Rayna Makes Her Choice: Much of the premiere had superstar/hair icon Rayna James doing things like looking at the two rings, given to her by country zillionaire/tool Luke Wheeler and tortured soul mate Deacon Claybourne in last season's finale. Unlike Kelly Taylor, she does not choose herself. Nor does she make a proposal of her own, that they all live happily together as a thrupple. She chooses Luke! And leaves Deacon hanging at the Bluebird, and forced to emote the hell out of this actual live performance of a song all about the fact that he knows how to love her now.

The message here is that you probably can't take, like, 14 years to learn how to love your lady. Speed that shit up, bro! Rayna seems confident about her decision, until she doesn't, which is a pattern that we've all gotten pretty used to. I can't even talk about how Deacon kissed Rayna's wrist in his bid to keep her, which was really hot but then ALSO somehow creepy. I secretly endorse her decision to choose Luke, even though I don't like it. Taking the emotionally healthy route is a fine and fair thing to do, even on a nighttime soap opera.

Gay Cowboy Update: When we last left off, gay cowboy Will Lexington came out of the closet in a rather tortured fashion to his unwitting beard/wife, Layla. Now she's pretty freaked out and wants a divorce, as well as to get out of the Newlyweds-esque reality show they've been filming. But as it happens, the producers of said show have all kinds of gay confessions on tape. Whoops!

Scraggly Weaves Prevail: Scarlett O'Connor, the sensitive fairy-like scraggly weave enthusiast who took a trip to the mental hospital last season after suffering the terrible fate of tremendous success in the music industry, has decided to leave Nashville. Ex-boyfriends Avery and Gunnar join her last-minute—Avery because he wants to get far away from cheating girlfriend Juliette (secretly not because of the cheating, but rather because couldn't bear to be within state lines when she sang "Crazy"), and Gunnar because he wants to convince Scarlett to stay in town. Road trip hijinx ensue. And everything is very confusing, because Scarlett—a generally odious character despite the writers' intentions—is kind of awesome throughout it all. By the end of the episode she's driving back to Nashville, because it is our fate never to be free of her.

I Fall to Pieces: Part of why Juliette was so upset while singing "Crazy" is that her boyfriend Avery (well, ex-boyfriend now) can't stand the sight of her after learning that she slept with vile record label executive Jeff Fordham. And now she's preggo! Convenient, given that Hayden Panettiere also has a buttermilk biscuit in the oven. Juliette is also TOTALLY going to get this Patsy Cline role, so look for "Walkin' After Midnight" to be defiled in future episodes.

[Videos via ABC]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Follow @GawkerMA and read more about it here.

Drake Cowardly Refuses to Take Sides in Heated Emoji Debate

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Drake Cowardly Refuses to Take Sides in Heated Emoji Debate

Child of god Aubrey Graham got some new tattoos yesterday from Dr. Woo at Shamrock Social Club in Hollywood. One of them was of the praying hands emoji, which some people wrongly believe depicts a "high five." But what does Drake believe?

"It will be a debate until the end of time...high five or praying hands...life is what u make it haaa," he reportedly wrote in the comments of a regram of Dr. Woo's original photo.

Drake Cowardly Refuses to Take Sides in Heated Emoji Debate

Given his followup comment, it seems like Drake is on the right side of the argument.

[Photo via Instagram]

Are Americans Kinder Than Russians? And Other Russian Memes Explained

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Are Americans Kinder Than Russians? And Other Russian Memes Explained

On the other side of the world, an entirely different internet is taking place: Russian internet. Today, Natalie Shure takes us on a tour of recent artifacts on the Russian web, from VKontakte to LiveJournal, from controversial pranksters to nonsensical dance loops.

The U.S. - Russia Social Experiment Heard Round the World

Nikolai and Guram, the Russian duo behind the popular YouTube channel Rakamakafo, bill themselves as pranksters in their bio. Lately, though, their uploads have veered toward amateur social commentary.

While Nikolai was on vacation in Miami, the guys decided to compare the reactions of passers-by to an ill stranger in both countries. So Guram and Nikolai played sick for hidden cameras in busy spots in their home cities of St. Petersburg, Russia and the United States, respectively.

The results of their (admittedly noncompliant with the scientific method) test were pretty startling. Over three days, Guram lay on the ground for hours before anyone stopped to check on him. Nikolai, however, was consistently tended to within less than one minute. The video wraps with them asking why their country is like that, and encouraging viewers not to be indifferent toward others in need.

The video racked up over five million views. But not everyone was on board with the warm and fuzzy conclusion. Criticism ranged from nitpicking the experiment's methodology to branding the video pro-American propaganda. Plenty of these issues were valid - after all, the guys behind Rakamakafo never claimed to be trained sociologists.

As many commenters pointed out, there many possible explanations for the sharp contrast between St. Petersburg and Miami. While most Americans seemed to read Nikolai as ill, Russians almost certainly assumed that Guram was drunk. Drinking is a huge part of Russian culture—especially among men—but it's also a highly social activity. The fact that Guram is alone mid-day makes it easy to assume he is an alcoholic on a zapoi—a booze binge lasting more than 24-hours.

The fact that there is a specific word for that in Russian might be funny if it weren't indicative of such a tragic cultural reality. Nearly 25% of Russian men die before they turn 55, many of whom are lost to alcohol-related complications. The country's staggering alcoholism stats are linked with various forms of violence, and are a source of incredible pain. Quite simply, the toll alcoholism has taken on Russia is different than it has been in other countries.

In a collective culture like Russia's, the fact that Guram was alone was probably also damning. (Wouldn't an upstanding fellow have friends around to help him?) Addiction treatment has also been slow to develop there, and care for the substance-dependent has yet to become mainstream.

I'm not so much defending the Russians' behavior here, so much as giving it some context. Russians are no more monsters than Americans are angels. Nikolai performed his part in what looks like a low-key tourist-y boardwalk, where it would be much easier to stop than on more crowded urban thoroughfares like the ones in Guram's clips. Also, Nikolai is, well, whiter than Guram, an ethnic Georgian. Plenty of commenters pointed out that Russians would have stopped in greater numbers to help Nikolai, and fewer Americans would have paused for Guram. This is probably true, but not exactly a ringing endorsement of the cultural forces in either place.

The Crowdsourced Citywide Dance Video That You Deserve

If the last two videos have reaffirmed your suspicions that Russia is a bleak abyss of icy sorrow, deprogram a bit. For all of its issues, Russia gets a tough shake in popular culture. So I love things like this video that challenge that. This video was made by a group of young people in Omsk, Siberia (seriously! It's amazing in the summer!) who went around the city asking strangers to dance in their film. Here is the adorable finished product:

GoPro(tato) HD

Just when you think you're fresh out of X-treme activities to justify the purchase of this boundary-pushing camera, a witty Russian comes up with a new one. It should be familiar to anyone who has visited Russian dachas - odd rustic cottages that city-dwellers flock to for R&R and food cultivation.

RETURN TO THE UNDERWORLD FROM WHENCE YOU CAME.

Note: The original version of this post contained inappropriate material that was posted without knowledge of the original context. We regret the error.

Jenna Jameson Doesn't Need Couples Therapy or Any Kind of Therapy

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VH1's Couples Therapy got to a very meta place Wednesday night when the focus shifted from the actual couples to the impudence of the camera operators and producers on the show, who were really annoying The Bachelor's Nikki by trying to like, film her while she was on set.

This became a slippery slope that shot us, much like a conversational Crocodile Mile, straight into Dr. Jenn accusing Jenna Jameson of telling the producers, telling her, telling therapy itself to "suck a cock." (See above.) Things got a little out of hand, guys!

Let's back up the tape, shall we?

The first major grievance started when Nikki complained about Juan Pablo filming an interview for the show in their bedroom.

A couple things here:

1) Feminine niceness is so enforced that when a girl near my age just straight up tells someone to fuck off, I get a little vicarious thrill.

2) BUT STILL rudeness towards someone you think you won't be punished for being rude to is atrocious. Satan has you in his clutches when you curse out a cashier.

3) If Nikki has not realized by now that at some point this same producer is going to go into a room with an editor and decide which footage of Nikki is going to be broadcast nation wide, re-shaping her extremely fragile image, then the girl is not just rude she is dum-dum like a lollipop.

Dr. Jenn got on her high horse at this point and explained to the audience that the cameras are necessary to the therapy process, as they force the couples to stay "accountable" for their actions. RIGHT.

Then Dr. Jenn brought Nikki in for a one-on-one and called her out on her language to the producers.

Obviously Nikki knows she's behaved like a brat (see rapid blinking, squirming). So Dr. Jenn, in her infinite wisdom, tries to re-focus Nikki's attention off the production and onto her ridiculous boyfriend with his two names and sends her back out into the house to try, try again.

Enter national treasure Jenna Jameson, who has been low-key supportive of all the ladies in the house like a fierce mama bear. Jenna, who was not 100% informed about the depths of Nikki's brattiness to the producers, made the colorful statement that Nikki was within her rights to tell the producers to go suck a cock if they intruded on her privacy. Is Jenna maybe drawing from years of professional experience in setting boundaries as a performer and not allowing oneself to feel bullied by whoever's holding the camera? I sure think so.

Which led like day into night into Dr. Jenn accusing Jenna of telling Therapy Herself to suck a cock.

This is one of those unfortunate situations where everyone involved is wrong. Nikki is wrong for expecting this show to give her free therapy and a paycheck while respecting her privacy. Faustian bargain is Faustian, girl!

Jenna is wrong for encouraging Nikki's brattiness, which is already raging like a wildfire all on it's own.

Dr. Jenn is SUPER wrong for insisting the cameras help the therapy process. How are these people supposed to trust you, their therapist, about being honest and vulnerable and real if you can't just openly say, "Hey, this is a reality show dum-dums. You don't want to be filmed, go pay for private counseling. This is how we keep the lights on: voyeurism. And you all know this might as well be called Career Therapy so stop complaining."

But most of all, I'm wrong for being addicted to this goddamn show. And secretly hoping Nikki will eventually push Juan Pablo into the pool and run out of the house into the night neighing like an unbroken stallion. My bad guys. My bad.

[Videos via VH1]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Follow @GawkerMA and read more about it here.

Lyft Just Slashed Driver Pay Again, And Everyone's Pissed

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Lyft Just Slashed Driver Pay Again, And Everyone's Pissed

Lyft just gutted their premium Lyft Plus service, leaving drivers with $34,000 luxury SUVs. Now the on-demand ride company is screwing their drivers again, slashing rates by ten percent in Los Angeles.

Lyft announced the cuts in an email to all drivers, reminding them "the more you make, the more Lyft makes, so your earnings are our top priority." But one Lyft driver explains to Valleywag that drivers aren't buying it:

Please bear in mind, drivers in LA were barely making more than minimum wage prior to today's 10% price decrease. Drivers are pissed off. There will still be people desperate enough for money that will be driving, of course. Until their tires blow and they can't afford to replace them. Or until tax time.

Lyft is [engaged in a] price war with Uber. And they're conducting this war on the backs of their drivers (and cars). New prices should be reflected on Lyft's site today.

Fist bumps!

Our tipster isn't the only one fed up. When Lyft's Community Manager, Stacey Speer, brought up the cuts in Lyft's "SoCal Driver Facebook Lounge," drivers were quick to call out the bullshit. Many quit there and then:

Lyft Just Slashed Driver Pay Again, And Everyone's Pissed

Lyft Just Slashed Driver Pay Again, And Everyone's Pissed

Lyft Just Slashed Driver Pay Again, And Everyone's Pissed

And so on.

Lyft tries to sell the pay cuts with the claim that cheaper rates will mean more riders, thus increasing revenue. But the cheaper rates/more revenue myth will never become true, no matter how many times "ride-sharing" startups repeat it.

Jacobin investigated Uber's price cuts, reporting that they "couldn't find a single driver who is making more money with the lower rates."

Uber drivers have no say in the pricing, yet they must carry their own insurance and foot the bill for gas and repairs — a cost of 56¢ per mile, according to IRS estimates. With Uber's new pricing model, drivers are forced to work under razor-thin margins. Arman, for instance, made about $20 an hour just a year ago. And now? Some days he doesn't even break minimum wage.

His experience is quite common among LA Uber drivers I spoke to. For many, driving for Uber has become a nightmare. Arman often works up to seventeen hours a day to bring home what he used to make in an eight-hour shift. When he emailed Uber to complain about his plummeting pay, he said the company blew him off. Uber's attitude is that drivers are free to stop working if they are dissatisfied, but for drivers like Arman who've invested serious money in their cars, quitting isn't an option.

Not that Uber's or Lyft's riders will ever hear this. Drivers told Jacobin that they always tell their passengers how much they love the opportunity, fearing that they'll get low ratings from riders—and then fired by Uber—if they tell the truth.

And UberX just announced that they're making their 25 percent price cut experiment in New York City permanent. Expect the truth to get a lot uglier.

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

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

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The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

It's Banned Books Week! But people are trying to keep great books out of libraries and schools every hour of every day, year round. And often, people's reasons for challenging these titles are really, really... outlandish. Here are 12 SF and fantasy books that people have given incomprehensible reasons for banning.

Top image: Neverwhere, art by Glenn Fabry

1. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Reason: Brief scene of "jumper-fumbling."

In Neverwhere, a man named Richard Mayhew discovers an invisible society called London Below. This book was on the supplemental reading list at a school in Alamagordo, NM for nearly 10 years with no complaints — until one mother noticed a brief scene where Mayhew is on a park bench and sees two young lovers, one of whom puts his hand inside the other one's jumper and moves it around enthusiastically. The "F" word is spoken briefly. The point of the scene is not titillation, but to show that Richard Mayhew has become invisible to those from London Above. A teacher commented on this issue: "We simply cannot stand for banning a book for hundreds of students this year and in the years to come because a single parent objected over one brief passage on one page. [...] Our students have enjoyed Gaiman's novel for almost ten years, and it saddens us to think that our future students will not have the same opportunity."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books


2. Bone by Jeff Smith

Reason: Racism

This year, the acclaimed adventure comic Bone by Jeff Smith appears prominently in the top 10 list of frequently banned and challenged books. And along with "political viewpoint" and "violence," the book was apparently challenged for being racist. Smith responds: "I have no idea what book these people read. After fielding these and other charges for a while now, I'm starting to think such outrageous accusations (really, racism?) say more about the people who make them than about the books themselves."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

3. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

Reason: Might lead to the use of pornography.

Sections of In the Night Kitchen, a picture book about a toddler's dream adventures in a surreal baker's kitchen, feature the young protagonist totally in the buff (he has to go swimming in big vats of milk). The nudity didn't sit well with some parents and librarians when it came out, with some libraries rejecting it outright and others drawing shorts on the boy. Nor has the controversy died down: in 1992 parents in Elk River, Minnesota claimed that the book could "lay the foundation for future use of pornography." The book continues to appear on the American Library Associations "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books" list, ranking 24th on the 2000-2010 list.

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

4. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Reasons: Promoting masturbation, talking animals, that smoking caterpillar.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has the distinction of being banned in multiple countries. It was banned in the US in the 1960's because of all the hookahs and mushrooms; and then again in the '90's, in New Hampshire, because the novel was supposed to promote "sexual fantasies and masturbation."

It wasn't drugs or sex that got this book in trouble in China in the 1930's though—that was all the fault of the talking animals. The Governor of Hunan Province banned the book, arguing that it was "disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Reason: Swearing, "questionable themes"

And yes, the irony of a book about burning books getting targeted for banning is not lost on anyone. Another frequent flyer on the banned-book lists, Fahrenheit 451 still faces frequent banning attempts. It was removed from a high school reading list in Mississippi because it contains the words "God damn," and has also been criticized for "portraying "questionable themes" that aren't suitable for young readers."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

6. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Reasons: Sex, profanity, mysticism, racism, Communism... what hasn't it been banned for?

This book gets banned a lot, but the best incident is this one: "In 1986 a small Wisconsin town banned the book because of a scene featuring the spider licking her lips. Religious groups in the town argued that this scene could be "taken in two ways, including sexual." (Google question: Do spiders have tongues? Google answer: No.)

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

7. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Reason: "religious viewpoint"

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins takes place in a future dystopia where the wealthy Capitol forces the formerly rebellious Districts to send their children to fight in a high-tech arena. And it's a perennial item on the list of the year's most frequently banned and challenged books, because of its violence and anti-authority messages. But this year, for some reason, Hunger Games is singled out for its "religious viewpoint." What viewpoint is that? Well, someone says the word "Hell" once in the entire book, and Katniss' mother is good at healing people with herbs. In previous years, one of the reasons for challenging Hunger Games was that it was "occult/Satanic."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

8. 1984 by George Orwell

Reason: Too Communist... or not Communist enough?

Banned in the USSR for implicitly criticizing Stalin's regime, the book was later challenged by parents in Florida for being "pro-communist."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

9. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum

Reasons: Too many strong women, negative, theologically impossible.

The Wizard of Oz, the story of a tornado that takes Dorothy from Kansas to a magical realm, has a good century of banning under its belt. It was widely banned in 1928 for "depicting women in strong leadership roles," an argument that held on for several decades, and in 1957 the Detroit Public Library banned the series for supporting "negativism and [bringing] children's minds to a cowardly level."

One prominent case, initiated in Tennessee by several Christian Fundamentalist families, concerned the book's theology. Arguing that all witches were evil, the group claimed that the presence of Glinda the Good Witch was a "theological impossibility." Parents also publically worried that their children would be seduced by "godless supernaturalism."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

10. Little Red Riding Hood

Reason: Sending the wrong message…about alcohol.

The stories contained within The Brothers Grimm are graphic, violent, sexually disturbing, and lots of other upsetting things, that have been the cause of many banning campaigns over the years.

Those were not, however, the reasons why a California school district decided to ban Little Red Riding Hood, one of the stories contained in the collection, from its elementary schools. That time it was because of all the booze.

You might need a moment to remember the alcohol in Little Red Riding Hood, which takes the form of a single bottle of wine in the basket Red is carrying to grandmother's house. It was one bottle of wine too many for the school district though, which "banned the book in order to protect its readers from the adverse effects of alcohol."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

11. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Reasons: Sex (too much of it), negativity

This book about a false utopia full of empty, unfulfilling sexuality was removed from a Missouri classroom "because it made promiscuous sex 'look like fun.'" The book was also challenged in a California school district because it "centered around negative activity."

The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

12. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Reasons: Magic fingers, depictions of women

This book about a man unstuck in time has been targeted many times over the years, for various reasons including the use of profanity. And sexuality: in 2007, the book was challenged in the Howell, MI high school by the Livingston Organization for Values in Education, or LOVE, which asked the police to investigate whether laws against distribution of sexually explicit material to minors had been violated. But the weirdest reasons for banning Slaughterhouse-Five include a mention of "magic fingers" in the protagonist's motel bed. (Dean Winchester would be shocked.) Also, the book was challenged in 1986 for "negative portrayals of women." (And if you have a moment, Vonnegut's letter about the banning of this novel is very much worth reading.)

Wowza, Your Public Pensions Are So Fucked

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Wowza, Your Public Pensions Are So Fucked

It's rare to find a job that offers a pension nowadays. And those that already had entire careers that promised them pensions—well, your outlook is almost as bad as someone with no pension at all.

Speaking very broadly, the way that many public pension plans are run should be considered more or less criminal and the officials responsible for doing such an awful, irresponsible job of managing the pension money of workers—often gleefully blowing it for short term political gain while pretending that they could magically make it up on the back end—should be sent to live in homeless shelters, with the people whose pensions they blew. Speaking very broadly.

Speaking somewhat more specifically, Bloomberg reports today that the latest Moody's calculations say the 25 largest public pensions in America are now $2 trillion in the hole—that is the gap between what they've promised to pay and what they can actually pay. But... but... "The 25 biggest systems by assets averaged a 7.45 percent return from 2004 to 2013, close to the expected 7.65 percent rate." If they're making almost what they're supposed to make, why the gap?

"Despite the robust investment returns since 2004, annual growth in unfunded pension liabilities has outstripped these returns," Moody's said. "This growth is due to inadequate pension contributions, stemming from a variety of actuarial and funding practices, as well as the sheer growth of pension liabilities as benefit accruals accelerate with the passage of time, salary increases and additional years of service."

In normal person talk that means "They are being managed horribly, the people who are supposed to be making sure they are adequately funded are not putting enough money into them, and they're making promises left and right just to be popular even though anyone with a calculator can figure out that they will not be able to meet those promises. The cowardly fucks."

Damn!

Pensions are already fucked enough in the sense that they're only available to a lucky few now anyhow. The fact that on top of that motherfuckers cannot just put in and take out the correct amounts of money each year is enraging and frankly ridiculous. A pension should be run by a stereotypically nerdy accountant who is good at math, not someone who is in any way engaged in the business of favor-trading. Use a calculator! Figure out how much you gonna have! Use division! Make an accurate promise! Don't blow the money! Do your jobs!

Just your latest update on why we should blow up pensions and build a better system of retirement for everyone.

[Photo: Flickr]


How To Kill In The Sims 4

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How To Kill In The Sims 4

Sims are much harder to kill in The Sims 4, the latest edition of EA's famous people simulator. Oh, but they can die. It just requires a bit more tact on the player's part. If you've been having a hard time tormenting your virtual pets, here are some tips to help you help them shuffle off their mortal coil.

Know Your Enemy

How To Kill In The Sims 4

When it comes to committing murder, The Sims 4 may appear tricky at first glance. But don't get discouraged. This is still a video game. At the end of the day, your Sims are pixellated avatars like any other. They live like video game characters. And they die like video game characters.

Killing Sims isn't as simple as walking up to some zombie and shooting it in the face, though, which is where the challenge comes in. There must be a specific cause of death for a Sim to croak, and "being shot in the face" isn't one of them. Since EA removed swimming pools in The Sims 4, the fan-favorite practice of removing ladders and leaving Sims to drown is no longer an option either.

Learn Your Sims' Weaknesses, Then Exploit Them

At present, there are ten different causes of death in The Sims 4. Seven are "natural" causes, and three come about from the game's newfangled emotions. In order to kill a Sim, therefore, you must bring about a situation that produces one of these causes-of-death. Let's attack each in turn.

Burn Your Sims Alive

How To Kill In The Sims 4

Setting a Sim ablaze is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get away with murder—but only once you've got a proper fire going. That's the tricky part, and may require some finagling in build mode. If your Sim has a very low cooking skill, try pointing them towards their oven and telling them to cook a complicated recipe. Another, arguably sounder methods involves tampering with a house's fireplace. Direct your Sim to build a fire, then switch over to build mode and fill the surrounding area with combustible material—chairs, rugs, anything that looks like it shouldn't be there.

Both of these methods ultimately come down to chance. So if you keep having trouble, remember to keep trying to set your house up in the least disaster-proof way imaginable. Try thinking to yourself: "Is this close enough to the exact opposite of what a household safety manual would recommend?" If the answer is "yes," then you're on the right track.

Send Them On a Botched Space Expedition

How To Kill In The Sims 4

One of the main career paths you can send your Sims down in The Sims 4 is to become an astronaut. Little do they know, its also one of the easiest ways to send them to their doom. Once you've reached a high enough level in the astronaut career, you can then construct a "Steampunk Flyamajig" in your Sim's lot and set them to building their very own rocket ship. Once you've done all that and have your rocket ship ready to go, there are two ways to prime Sims for death. First, you can direct a Sim to race with the rocket ship. If the Sim has a low enough rocket science skill, they'll most likely end up crashing the rocket ship. Alternatively, you could also stick a piece of fruit in the rocket ship's exhaust pipe using a given Sim's mischief abilities.

Technically, death-by-rocket-ship is the same thing as death-by-immolation, since crashing the rocket ship only kills Sims by setting them on fire.

Electrocute Them. Twice.

How To Kill In The Sims 4

Awesome screenshot via SimsVIP

Frying your Sims is proving more trouble than its worth? Well, maybe its time to try zapping them like the little bugs that they are. Plop a few electrical appliances into your household and wait for one of them to break. This shouldn't take long if you use them as intended more than a few times. Once, say, the boombox starts smoking and shooting off sparks, direct your Sim to repair it. As with death by fire, this method only works with Sims that have a very low Handiness skill level. If they do, they'll likely end up shocking themselves when trying to repair the faulty appliance. That will put the Sim in a "Singed" state, as indicated by his or her moodlet. If you direct the Sim to attempt another repair while still singed, a second shock will be enough to push them over the edge.

Starve Them

Depriving Sims of food might sound like one of the easiest ways to force them to bite the bullet. And it is, in a way. But it also requires unlearning some of the basic principles of playing The Sims in a properly tidy, doll-house sort of way. Alleviating hunger is one of the first thing every Sims player learns when trying to make their virtual pets happy. Imposing it isn't as simple as forgetting to feed a Sim. To properly starve a Sim to death, you have to gate them off in such a way that they have no way to access food. An easy way to do this is by sticking them in a room, and then removing all the doors so they're physically incapable of leaving.

Then, you just have to wait. And wait. And maintain the steely resolve that you've developed as the kind of soulless human being who can just sit back and laugh maniacally as your Sims slowly waste away—alone, hungry, and afraid.

God, this game is morbid sometimes.

Sacrifice Them At The Unholy Altar Of The Cow Plant

How To Kill In The Sims 4

The Laganaphyllis Simnovorii might look like a docile combination of bovine and flora. But behind its cool exterior lies a savage beast, just waiting to strike and swallow some helpless Sim whole. All you need to do to accelerate the process is abstain from feeding the cow plant. Once the plant gets hungry, it will try to lure unsuspecting Sims towards it with a cake-shaped piece of bait. If you're controlling a Sim in this situation, you'll be presented with two options: "Feed The Cow Plant," or "Eat The Cake." You know what to do.

As with death-by-rocket-ship, death-by-cow-plant requires you to first unlock some advanced stuff. In order to gain access to the Cow Plant, you need to first develop your gardening skill and find some cow plant berries. The former is just a matter of practice and leveling up as you would with any skill in The Sims 4. Berries can be found in a few specific ways:

  • By fishing, either in the backwaters of the Oasis Springs Park or in the waters of the Forgotten Grotto. The Forgotten Grotto is one of the game's secret locations, so if you're having trouble finding it check back in with our tips.
  • By exploring space.
  • When digging for treasures.
  • By combining specific plant types.

Fishing is by far the easiest method. Except for just cheating, I guess.

Push Them Over The Edge With Too Much Physical Activity

How To Kill In The Sims 4

Just like real people with muscles and souls and more of an innate sense of when to get to the bathroom (well, sometimes), Sims lose a lot of their stamina when they enter into their autumn years. If you tell an elderly Sim to exercise or have sex, therefore, they'll often end up with a "Dangerously Tired" moodlet that lasts for four hours of Sim time. Ordering them to do more strenuous activity when they're already in this precarious state is a good way to push them over the edge, poor old geezers that they are. Little do they know that you, the cruel master of their world, is the closest thing they have to a Lifeline medical alert system.

Hit 'Em Where It Hurts: In The Feelings

How To Kill In The Sims 4

Remember the feeling you had when you accidentally emailed that batch of...personal images to your boss instead of your significant other or romantic partner? That you wanted to crawl into a little ball and die? Well, your Sims can feel that way, too. The only difference is: they actually will die. EA wasn't kidding when they said that emotions can kill you this time around. There are three different mood groups that can prove deadly for Sims: Embarrassment, Anger, and Hysteria.

Killing Sims this way isn't as simple as just pissing them off, however. Each emotion in the Sims is further divided into four different intensity levels. Anger is broken down into "Angry," "Very Angry," "Furious," and "Enraged," for instance, while embarrassment is "Embarrassed, Very Embarrassed, Humiliated and Mortified."

To actually kill a Sim, you have to keep them at the highest level of that emotion for a good chunk of time. This can be tricky, because Sims are fickle, unpredictable beings. The best way to ensure a Sim kicks the bucket is to keep close track of their mood once they reach a heightened emotional state and make sure to stop them if they try to do anything to alleviate it. When a Sim is in a particular mood and you toggle over him or her, certain actions will pop up that are colored in the same hue as the mood (light blue for flirty, yellow for embarrassed, etc.). Performing any of these actions is the quickest and easiest way to alleviate or repair a Sim's mood. So if you're trying to keep rubbing the Sim the wrong way instead, just try to do the opposite of what the game is suggesting you do. If your Sim hates children and thus gets enraged at the sight of them, for instance, trap them in a room with a bunch of screaming infants.

Get The Job Done The Old Fashioned Way: With Age

How To Kill In The Sims 4

Ok. Let's say that you've plumbed the deepest, most morbid depths of The Sims 4 and still aren't satisfied with all the ways you've discovered you can torment your poor Sims. Well, here's one final suggestion: play The Sims 4 normally for a Sim's entire life. Build them a big, beautiful house and help them foster a family inside it. Nudge them along their desired career paths, indulge their hobbies, help them realize their wildest dreams. And then, sit back and watch as they inexorably wind their way into old age and, ultimately, death's embrace.

I know what you're thinking: disgusting, right? They'll never know what hit 'em!

If All Else Fails, Start Using Cheats

How To Kill In The Sims 4

I've mentioned this a few times already, but killing Sims is hard in The Sims 4, even by the series' admittedly wonky standards. Pretty much every method I outlined above requires a fair amount of planning, tactfulness, and patience. If brooding over your Sims as they struggle to die makes you feel uncomfortable, or if you just prefer your video game deaths be more immediate, there are a few cheat codes that will help put them in a state that's more prone to death. If you need help figuring out how to input cheat codes, check out our handy round-up of the most helpful Sims 4 cheats. And again: bear in mind that these cheats don't actually kill your Sims for you. They just make them more kill-able, as it were:

  • "sims.add_buff buff_death_electrocution_warning" —Equips a sim with a buff that will make him/her prone to dying while fixing an appliance; have the sim repair something electronic to trigger death
  • "sims.add_buff buff_Mortified" —Equips a sim with the mortified moodlet/buff that will make him/her prone to dying from embarrassment
  • "sims.add_buff buff_Enraged" —Equips a sim with the enraged moodlet/buff that will make him/her prone to dying from anger
  • "sims.add_buff buff_Hysterical" —Equips a sim with the hysterical moodlet/buff that will make him/her prone to dying from hysteria
  • "sims.add_buff hunger_Starving" —Pretty much a guaranteed death within 24 hours; sims will die of hunger

And Remember: You Can Also Bring A Sim Back To Life

How To Kill In The Sims 4

Phew. Well, that was a lot of death for a single article. Let's end on a somewhat lighter note, shall we?

After you're done wreaking havoc on your Sims, you might find yourself full of regret. Don't be embarrassed, that's a perfectly normal reaction to losing something you love. And man, do these new Sims know how to tug at the heartstrings. So if you find yourself missing a Sim more than you expected, fear not: there's a way to bring them back, and not just in zombie form!

Of course, there are always cheats to help you cheat death as well. But here's one way to do it while playing by the rules that I discovered thanks to SimsVIP. All you need is a Sim who's a writer. Then, follow these steps:

  • Level up the Sim's writing skill to 10.
  • Complete the "Bestselling Author" Aspiration
  • Have the Sim write "The Book of Life," which will be available as a command when clicking on a computer.
  • After finishing the book, click on it when controlling its author and select the "Capture Epic Saga" option. Then select the Sim you want to preserve. This Sim must be nearby, so I recommend keeping the Book of Life in the author Sim's inventory. Also, you must capture the Epic Saga of a Sim before he or she dies for the next step to work.
  • Once the Sim whose epic saga has been captured dies, click on the book again and select the "Summon" option.

How To Kill In The Sims 4

Ok, now that we've got that out of the way I can finally take a break from tormenting all my poor Sims and go back to loving them like the caring, hapless imaginary parent that I am. But I'm still curious: what's your favorite way to kill a Sim? Let us know about your favorite virtual lifehacks (or deathhacks, I guess?) in the comments below.

Illustration by Jim Cooke

To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.

I Am a Demon Like Literally Born in Hell But This Video Poked My Heart

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In this video, a pack of children have an argument about weather, and eventually come to blows.

"You poked my heart," gasps the sole little boy, betrayed, as his big blue eyes fill with tears.

"You poked my heart," he whimpers, as he backs into a door.

"You poked my heart," he whispers, as the video cuts away.

I have never liked anything—IN MY LIFE—except this video.

[h/t ET]

CBS Station Spreads Cruel "Pumpkin Spice Four Loko" Hoax

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CBS Station Spreads Cruel "Pumpkin Spice Four Loko" Hoax

Gawker readers of a certain age may fondly remember Four Loko*, the once popular malt liquor energy drink framed as a public menace and later banned by—who elseObama. Many of those same readers will be surprised to learn the formerly verboten beverage continues to be manufactured, albeit in a neutered, caffeine-free (but still devastatingly alcoholic) form.

So the Internet reacted with an understandable mix of joy and fear last week when Twitter's @Things4WhitePpl posted this photo, depicting a new, even more sorority-friendly version of the notorious brew. The picture was soon picked up by a number of media outlets, including Complex, Elite Daily and Bay Area CBS affiliate KITS-FM, who ran the image with the headline "Pumpkin Spice Flavored Four Loko On The Way."

Unfortunately for fans of peaceful, leaf-lined forest walks and puking, the drink is nothing but a golden-hued fantasy. "Pumpkin Spice Four Loko is a parody flavor... for now!" a company spokesperson told Gawker, implicitly threatening to call the pumpkin-loving public on its bluff.

Drinkers seeking autumn-themed libations still have plenty of options, though, including hard cider, hot toddies and that most classic fall cocktail, whatever you usually drink but slightly colder.

*Full disclosure: In college, the author of this post drank so much Four Loko (and, to a lesser extent, Joose) it literally gave him a peptic ulcer.

[Image via Facebook]


Antiviral is a new blog devoted to debunking online hoaxes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

"We Thought Everybody Made It Back": The Clemson Frat Pledge 911 Call

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Questions regarding who, if anyone, is culpable in death of Tucker Hipps—the Sigma Phi Epsilon pledge at Clemson who was found dead in a lake near campus Monday after going on an early morning run with fellow pledges and frat brothers—remain, but a newly released 911 call indicates that his frat's explanation was set from the beginning.

That call is embedded above, and in it a friend—whose name appears to be Cam—tells the 911 operator the same story that the university relayed to the public on Tuesday: that the frat went running early Monday morning, and when the group returned Hipps was unable to be located.

The friend opens the call by asking the operator if cops had "picked up" anyone that matches Hipps' description, but after the operator tells the friend that the police "don't just pick up people off the side of the road," they begin to discuss the manner in which Hipps disappeared. The story, again, is very similar to the university's public explanation, but there is one point in which Hipps' friend seems to be withholding details.

Almost exactly three minutes into the call, the operator asks the friend when he last saw Hipps. His response is as follows:

When we were running. Someone said that he was like—he was running with us and he said that he was, like—[pause]—there and we got back and we thought everybody made it back and he didn't.

It is in that portion, specifically at the moment where Hipps' friend pauses for a full second, where it seems like he chooses to omit details about the state in which the frat brothers and other pledges last saw Hipps.

By now, though, one figures those details will have come out, at least in private—police say they have already interviewed the 30 or so members that make up Clemson's Sig Ep chapter. But if something nefarious triggered Hipps' death—as a large number of Clemson students suspect—the police haven't indicated it.

Oconee County sheriff Mike Crenshaw said yesterday that his department is still waiting on toxicology results that might shed light on why Hipps—a fit 19-year-old with no known medical issues—fell behind the group early in a run before somehow toppling over a bridge and dying.

Regardless of what those toxicology results return, it appears as if the question of whether hazing killed Tucker Hipps will depend on what you consider hazing. As many commenters in our post from yesterday pointed out, very few fraternities have "voluntary" 5:30 a.m. Monday runs attended by over 30 people. But others, especially those that made it out of the fraternity system safe and sound, objected to the notion that such an activity even counts as hazing.

Police on the case, for their part, seem to strongly side with the latter argument.

Watch Chris Hemsworth Play a Beautiful Blonde Hacker in "Blackhat"

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Imagine "Last of the Mohicans" mixed with "Silicon Valley" mixed with the male ideal of beauty mixed with some deleted James Bond scenes, and it might look like this: the trailer for Michael Mann's latest thriller.

The trailer looks exciting enough, but what's more enticing is its fidelity to the real world of hacking and the hackers who hack. Just look at all of the cheekbones, and piercing eyes, and guns, and martial arts, and socializing, and visible electrons zooming through ethernet cables. Maybe there will be a scene in which Hemsworth looks at the screen and says "this guy bytes (bites)" and then shoots him and then rides off on a zip line.

Ello Is There Anybody Out There

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Ello Is There Anybody Out There

Ello is a bright and clean new social network that promises, in its manifesto, to stay free of ads, never sell your data, and not make anyone use real names. People are paying attention to Ello because other people are paying attention to Ello. It is invitation only. New members were joining at the rate of 4,000 sign-ups per hour yesterday; the site is doubling in size every 3 or 4 days. Ello just notified me that I can't send out invites right now because "Ello has gone viral."

That description alone places Ello squarely in our current technological moment—as flawlessly Fall, 2014 as Infosec Taylor Swifteven if the surge in popularity is primal shrug that some of us want out. Facebook is a utility and no one wants to hang out in a ConEd plant. Facebook alienated drag queens and the LGBT community with its real name policy, making Ello look like a crisp, new fuck you.

We treat "it" startups like come-hither ingenues and right now that "it" is Ello. This week or next, you will ask or be asked, in mildly panicked tones, whether you need to know what Ello is.

Ello Is There Anybody Out There


But for those searching for what's next, Ello is not it. There have been a few versions of this virtuous social network before—from Diaspora (forgotten), App.net (oof), and even Path (oy). Of those three, people badly wanted to believe in Diaspora. "Their project was intended less as an imitation of Facebook than as an escape route from it—a path to freedom for those who had come to fear the dark side of the social network," New York magazine wrote almost four years ago to the day.

In the case of Ello creator Paul Budnitz, a Colorado-based artist, photographer, filmmaker, toy maker, and bike enthusiast, he went with "evil" instead of "dark side," telling Betabeat:

They will do whatever it takes to show you more ads — and to show your friends more ads — even reading your posts and your friends' posts and using your connections to make money. We think this is evil.

http://betabeat.com/2014/04/would-...

Ello Is There Anybody Out There

Ello is still in beta and people really want to believe in Budnitz and his six cofounders, too.

Only nowadays, the hype cycle now happens at hyperloop speed. So barely after it opened shop, we have Ello users bemoaning the lack of diversity and posting warnings on Ello that "Ello will one day suck." How did we get to nostalgia already?

New companies seem more and more disposable, but we keeping clicking around demanding authenticity and purity. Journalist Quinn Norton concluded on Ello that the only way it will survive is if Budnitz agreed to become Jonas Salk instead of Mark Zuckerberg.

The critics may be premature, but they're onto something. Ello has already taken venture capital financing, albeit from Vermont. And no matter how many features are added and tweaked, Ello was built on conventional wisdom: it has a manifesto (if left out on the counter, those things will attract thinkpieces), it wants to "change the world," it throws around words like "forever."

Ello Is There Anybody Out There

Then there's invitation-only aspect. While useful for struggling servers, it's a basic bitch's growth-hacking technique, breeding homogeneity, stoking peer pressure, and swerving into the hype cycle lane. Viral is not a state to aspire to if you "believe there is a better way" and "believe in audacity." See, I'm not immune to the manifesto effect either. Look at what I just wrote.

Ello Is There Anybody Out There

Here's the life-affirming part of tech co-dependency. Ello is pretty fun right now. Fun and freeing. It's stupefying how quickly we've normalized behaviors like registering with a Facebook or Twitter identity or pulling from your contacts. If you're forced to ask questions like, "Where are my friends?" then, woot, you get to pick new friends. And don't you want to pick new friends? Aren't you tired to listening to the old ones? There's even a button for that: you can label every person "FRIEND" or "NOISE."

Ello was different enough to remind me how very different things could be. I posted sentimental and uncool updates that otherwise would have gone unspoken, I wasn't connected to anyone on my Twitter lists. It felt more like Tumblr than Facebook: intimate, when every few eyes were on you and you're encouraged to befriend random strangers.

This morning, early adopters started tweeting out links to their Ello profiles, so canoes are filling fast with familiar faces to ride down yet another stream. Around the same time Budnitz promised (again) to remain ad-free and porn-friendly, we learned then a brand has already found its way in.

But cheer up Ello members because this is not your startup. You don't have to worry if this will last. The search for a space completely free of commercialization has long been futile. Maybe the new next is jumping from platform to app, fragmenting your identity in a way Facebook and Google would never allow. If Ello fails and your contributions are lost, right now impermanence feels like mischief. It feels like a gift with purchase.

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

[Photo via Getty]

Police "Still Have No Idea" Where Missing UVA Student Is

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Police "Still Have No Idea" Where Missing UVA Student Is

A day after a lead suspect was arrested, Charlottesville, Va. police told reporters at a press conference today that they are no closer to finding missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham. "We still have no idea whatsoever where she is, despite our best efforts," Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo said. "We have an obligation to bring her home, one way or the other. That's what we promised to do."

Police in Galveston, Texas arrested Jesse Leroy Matthew, Jr., 32, last night on felony abduction charges and intent to defile. He is being extradited from Texas and should arrive back in Charlottesville by Saturday, the Associated Press reports:

Police said they had probable cause to support the charge against Matthew after twice searching his apartment and gathering evidence they have not described. Police said a crime lab is testing clothing they recovered through search warrants, but they haven't said whose clothing that was.

According to the Daily Progress, Matthew waived his right to fight the extradition in court today. The paper also reports that Matthew, an operating room technician, faced sexual assault allegations during his time as a student and football player at Liberty University. Matthew apparently left the school in 2002 and a sexual assault report was filed against him in October of that year.

"Liberty University can also report that the Oct. 17, 2002 rape report was investigated by the Lynchburg Police Department. We understand the matter was also turned over to the local Commonwealth Attorney's Office," the school told the paper.

No charges were filed against Matthew in the 2002 case.

[Image via AP]


Those "Interceptor" Fake Cell Phone Towers Are in Washington D.C. Now​

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Those "Interceptor" Fake Cell Phone Towers Are in Washington D.C. Now​

The fear is back! Just in time for a long queasy October, the Washington Post did a ride-along with the CEO of mobile security firm Integricell, who was mapping the locations of fake cell phone towers surveilling D.C.; What they found, the Post reports, was like "a primer on the geography of Washington power."

Those "Interceptor" Fake Cell Phone Towers Are in Washington D.C. Now​

Over a dozen counterfeit cell towers were found—as you can see on the map at left, generated by members of Integricell and ESD America, the two firms responsible for the privacy-protecting Cryptophone. (This map shows 15, but the companies say they have found 18 so far.) Tell-tale signs of these surveillance devices, according to the Post, were found near the White House, Capitol Hill, D.C.'s many foreign embassies, and the offices of several federal contractors located near Dulles International Airport.

"I think there's even more here," ESD America's CEO, Les Goldsmith, said. "That was just us driving around for a day and a half."

This past summer, in a previous (and wildly successful) publicity stunt/important public service announcement, Goldsmith released a map showing that these "interceptor" fake cell towers, known technically as IMSI catchers, appeared to be popping up near army bases all across the United States.

Also known as cell site simulators, or stingrays, IMSI catchers are computer-controlled radio transmitters designed to perform "man in the middle attacks" on mobile devices in a cellular network. They've actually been in existence since 1993, when they were first designed to steal nearby phones' International Mobile Subscriber Identities (IMSIs), an ID that can be used to request other personal information about the phone. Since then, much like you, their capabilities have expanded impressively: IMSI catchers can be used to intercept calls and SMS texts, including two-factor authentication information; They can track a phone's location; Deploy geo-targeted spam; Issue operator messages that reconfigure the phone, installing permanent backdoor mechanisms; and/or probe the phone's SIM card for its encryption key and other stored information. (All SIM cards have an encryption key; It is pretty standard.)

Those "Interceptor" Fake Cell Phone Towers Are in Washington D.C. Now​

Readers of anti-Socialist denim entrepreneur Glenn Beck, and his personal internet website, The Blaze, learned this month that these "interceptor" towers need not actually be physical towers. (Truly doing the Lord's work, The Blaze is always willing to write charitable "explainers" for the least of our people.) And you should listen to your friends at Glenn Beck's The Blaze: IMSI catchers, have gone from being bulky car-mounted things to devices so small that they could be comfortably worn undercover like an old-school wire. This time last year, some brave soul leaked the brochures for a body-worn IMSI catcher (pictured) put out by GammaGroup: the Eurotrash makers of that odious commercial spyware package FinFisher, favored surveillance tool of repressive dictatorships and ostensible democracies alike. (Any boho chic stranger in a baggy sweater could be stealing personal data from your phone, thanks to this vest.)

Alerting users that their mobile device is being subjected to a potential attack is only part of what the CryptoPhone does, but here's how it does it: The CryptoPhone monitors three activities between itself and cellular phone towers as indicators of an IMSI catcher posing as part of its network. First, it records when a tower attempts to downshift the phone from a better-secured 3G network to the lower, less-protected 2G network. Second, it monitors when a cell tower begins requesting unencrypted communications. Third, it flags when a cell tower declines to list neighboring cell towers, in an effort to maintain its hold on the phone.

In a paper written for the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference this December in New Orleans, researchers described roughly ten suspicious activities like these that might indicate a phone is communicating with an IMSI catcher instead of a normal tower. However, one of the paper's co-authors, Adrian Dabrowski, a graduate student researcher at the SBA Research consortium in Vienna, told the Post that the simultaneous appearance of the three indicators tracked by the CryptoPhone would be enough to highly imply the presence of an IMSI catcher.

You can see the Cryptophone monitoring these in this short clip from the Washington Post, in which reporter Ashkan Soltani and Integricell CEO Aaron Turner drive the device past the Russian Embassy:

It is cute and fun—very sexy spy stuff—much like it was cute and fun last time, when ESD's CEO, Les Goldsmith, suggested that the IMSI catchers discovered outside U.S. army bases might actually be Chinese, the skullduggerous work of our superpower frenemies to the East.

And: That may be true.

A creepy thing about these fake cell phone towers is that it's almost impossible to know who or what is responsible for each specific one without capturing each specific one.

But being real for a moment: A very nontrivial amount of these IMSI catchers are almost assuredly just being run by the cops.

Those "Interceptor" Fake Cell Phone Towers Are in Washington D.C. Now​

Local, state, and federal law enforcement have have been prancing around, abusing this technology for years now, most notably an IMSI catcher produced by Florida-based Harris Corp. called the StingRay, which has sorta become the Google or Kleenex of the industry, in that it's a brand whose market share is so immense that it often lexically overshadows the generic name for the product itself. According to the ACLU, police in Maryland and Virginia both have access to stingrays, and while it's unknown if this is also true in D.C., like: Why would anyone assume otherwise?

Pursuant to the regulatory authority of the FCC, for some godforsaken reason, the FBI has had law enforcement agencies sign nondisclosure agreements pertaining to their acquisition of stingrays, with the primary purpose of these NDAs being, near as anyone can tell, to prevent people like the ACLU from finding out when and why the StingRays have been used—or if they are being used legally. Police in Brevard County, Florida; Tuscon, Arizona and Sacramento, California have all used the NDAs as a pretext for withholding documents from the nonprofit group.

A software developer and activist named Phil Mocek, working through MuckRock, recently got his hands on one of these NDAs, specifically a copy from the local police in Tacoma, Washington. It's a quick read; Four of the six pages have been completely redacted.

The secrecy is worrisome on its own, but what little information that has emerged has only cast darker, scarier shadows on those gaps in the record. This June, the Florida branch of the ACLU released a set of internal police emails showing that the U.S. Marshalls Task Force in Tampa was asking police to seal court affidavits mentioning the use of stingrays and to file new, intentionally disingenuous affidavits listing the information obtained from stingrays as coming from "a confidential source." You don't have to be an ACLU lawyer to understand how terrible that is; It essentially prevents defendants from being able to challenge potentially unlawful, warrantless surveillance.

Here's the most damning portion of those emails, highlighted by TechDirt:

Those "Interceptor" Fake Cell Phone Towers Are in Washington D.C. Now​

Even in cases where law enforcement isn't out-and-out lying about the provenance of evidence pulled with stingrays, there is the dangerous reality that there currently exists no statutory, regulatory, or constitutional frameworks to dictate how they are to be used. Fourth Amendment advocates, defense attorneys, and the rest of us, largely have no idea whether or not warrants are being pursued and granted under the veil of secrecy created by this NDA system.

Generously assuming that warrants are issued in every single case, there's still also the weird legal matter of how to view the rights of all the innocent people whose phones will inevitably be caught up in the radius of a stingray's search. About a year ago, Linda Lye, an attorney for the ACLU in Northern California, compared this to police getting a warrant to search one tenant's apartment and then searching the whole complex, because if it sounds crazy and wrong in a corporeal world analogy, you should feel free to assume it's crazy and wrong in the virtual world.

The fact that these IMSI catchers in D.C. and elsewhere could belong to the local cops, state troopers, U.S. Marshals, Secret Service agents, the FBI, CIA, Russian SVR, the Chinese, the Mossad, Saudi Intelligence, Germany BND, French BRGE, Ancient Aliens, Contemporary Aliens, run-of-the-mill cyber criminals, God, ISIS, 4chan, expensive private spooks doing corporate espionage for Japan, Iran, or Rupert Murdoch is, perhaps, one of the best reasons why the U.S. government should start rolling back the surveillance state. America can't have it both ways; It cannot have an infrastructure that is at once thoroughly exploitable by U.S. intelligence firms for sprawling, panoptical espionage, and simultaneously an infrastructure that is safe from foreign espionage threats.

Bruce Schneier's name may or may not be familiar to you. He's a veteran security researcher, frequent WIRED contributor, and the author of some of the major urtexts in our cyber security system, like Applied Cryptography and Cryptography Engineering. In a blog post this past weekend, Schneier's reaction to this Washington Post story practically sounded like he was choking back tears of rage:

We have one infrastructure. We can't choose a world where the US gets to spy and the Chinese don't. We get to choose a world where everyone can spy, or a world where no one can spy. We can be secure from everyone, or vulnerable to anyone. And I'm tired of us choosing surveillance over security.

This is correct.

Everyone should feel sick and tired, about this, if not completely exhausted and terminally ill.

[photo of an unmarked Chevy Van in Takoma Park, MD near D.C., modified by author, via takomabibelot under a creative commons license; other photos via EDS America/Integricel, GammaGroup, and "the police," in order of appearance; h/t the Washington Post]

To contact the author, email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key.

Three 9/11 Firemen Die of Cancer on the Same Day

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Three 9/11 Firemen Die of Cancer on the Same Day

On Monday, three firefighters who served on 9/11 died within hours of each other, according to the BBC. Lieutenant Howard Bischoff, 58, and firefighters Robert Leaver, 56, and Daniel Heglund, 58, all died of cancer, though it's unclear if their illnesses were linked to their service after the attacks.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro told the BBC that the firefighters' deaths are a "painful reminder that 13 years later we continue to pay a terrible price for the department's heroic efforts." All three were first responders who were exposed to toxic dust in the wake of the attacks.

Leaver and Bischoff were "lifelong best friends" who grew up together in Park Slope. Leaver's widow, Rosaria, told the New York Daily News: "I felt at least Robert and Howie went off to heaven together."

Heglund's brother, FDNY Capt. Paul Heglund, was also a first responder. "We would do 24 hours on and 24 hours off back then, but after working at the firehouse, you would go down there, work 10-12 hours and then go home to show your face," he told the Daily News. "Then it was back to the firehouse."

According to the BBC, about 1,000 deaths have been linked to "illnesses caused by toxic dust issuing from wreckage at Ground Zero."

[Photo via AP]

James Frey Just Luring Readers With Doubloons Now

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James Frey Just Luring Readers With Doubloons Now

James Frey, a liar and former Gawker intern, has a new project forthcoming, and it's a doozy.

See for yourself, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

On Oct. 7 he will release "Endgame," a novel that will simultaneously launch with a YouTube channel, 50 social-media accounts and a real-life puzzle. (A videogame will come soon after.) The first reader to solve the puzzle in the story gets $500,000 in gold coins, provided by Mr. Frey himself.

Because after you've made up a book, been yelled at by Oprah, tried your hand at YA fiction, and completed an internship at Gawker, what else is there left to do but pay people to read your stuff?

Brits Jump on ISIS Bombing Bandwagon

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Brits Jump on ISIS Bombing Bandwagon

British Parliament voted today in favor in joining the American-led air campaign against ISIS targets in Iraq. Military action was approved by a 524 to 43 vote after seven hours of debate. Prime Minister David Cameron said he recalled Parliament Friday in the hopes of the matter going to a vote. "This is not the stuff of fantasy—it is happening in front of us and we need to face up to it," Cameron said.http://gawker.com/britain-with-a...

According to the BBC, some MPs expressed "great anxiety" about the scope of the UK's involvement in the campaign, and when it might end. Cameron said that the fight against ISIS would take "not months but years," and that "the hallmarks of this campaign will be patience and persistence—not shock and awe."

The UK's vote to launch their own airstrikes against ISIS comes as the U.S. has seriously stepped up their attacks in both Iraq and Syria. http://gawker.com/who-are-we-bom...

[Image of David Cameron at a UN Security Council Meeting via AP]

David Brooks Columns In One Sentence or Less

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David Brooks Columns In One Sentence or Less

I bet thinking up two new column topics every single week is pretty hard, after a while.

Earlier this week, we pointed out that it is hard to get much anger going against gentle beta conservative David Brooks even when he has clear ethical conflicts, given the fact that all he ever seems to write about is soft-focus social science pap. (Keep in mind that Brooks is considered one of the New York Times' more intellectual opinion columnists.) For your perusal, we took the trouble of summarizing several months worth of Brooks' columns below. I believe you will learn a lot.

9/25/14: Having a routine is important.

9/18/14: Friendship is important.

9/8/14: It's important to get a moral education.

9/4/14: "We're repulsed by a beheading because the body has a spiritual essence."

8/28/14: Courage, firmness, humility, autonomy, and generosity are important.

8/7/14: It's important to be introspective but not self-absorbed.

7/31/14: Good character is important.

7/10/14: Life is like soccer, not like baseball.

7/7/14: It's important to be in a creative environment.

7/3/14: Social science findings are important.

6/30/14: Trust is important.

6/26/14: "Americans have lost faith in their own gospel."

6/23/14: Nobody's perfect.

6/16/14: Learning is hard.

6/3/14: Focus is important.

5/16/14: Wisdom is important.

5/12/14: Confidence is important.

5/5/14: Kids have changed.

5/1/14: Nothing is more important than love.

Please put this man out of his misery.

[Photo: Getty]

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