The governors of 17 states, including Florida, Arizona, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Illinois, have joined their cowardly colleagues in Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama, and Texas in trying to prevent Syrian refugees from settling in their states.
http://gawker.com/alabama-and-mi...
http://gawker.com/texas-joins-al...
Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.
I believe I’ve made my position regarding one of the most important philosophical issues known to mankind, where the eyes of an anthropomorphized car should be, abundantly clear: the headlights. The eyes of a car-face are the headlights
http://jalopnik.com/5870976/how-pi...
Sadly, there are certain individuals who disagree. And they want me fired, because they simply can’t handle the truth.
The organization demanding my dismissal is the Disney Pixar Cars Roleplay organization, an influential and globally-important association of people who like to pretend to be the characters from the Cars series of movies on Facebook.
Here’s the email they sent to everyone at Jalopnik (and possibly BCC’d the State Department):
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN,
Where do you think you get off?
“The eyes of anthropomorphized cars are the headlights, not the windshield.” Really? Care to say that again? You are dead wrong. Everyone knows Pixar put the eyes on the windshield to be able to do more with their facial reactions. If you knew anything about the series, you would know that. But you didn’t know that! Another piss-poor, uninformed journalist. Sad state that our media is in.
Do you really think that looks natural? You can barely tell the eyes are in the headlights.
You go on to say, “Plus, if the eyes are in the windshield, what do you do with the lights? Ignore them? Pretend they’re just two evenly sized, symmetrical moles? Growths?” Well pal, you do exactly what Pixar did. Take a look:
That looks perfectly fine, no? Your argument seems pretty stupid now, doesn’t it?We aren’t just calling for you to remove the article - oh no, we want much more. We want Mr. Jason Torchinsky to be fired because of this. Yes, FIRED. We will not stand for this incorrect and blasphemous journalism anymore. No, not in the year 2015.
If you would like to come in contact with us, you can reach us on our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/DisneyPixarCar...
Have a great day,
Disney Pixar Cars Roleplay
It’s clearly a passionate argument. And it’s probably worth explaining a bit about exactly who this group is and what the hell they’re actually doing out there on Facebook, pretending to be fictional anthropomorphized cars from a kid’s movie.
They’re part of a movement known as Internet R0le-Play which is, as you can probably figure out from the name, people pretending to be other people on the Internet. You know, like that famous dog and almost all your friends on Facebook that seem to go on amazing vacations every three weeks.
Vice’s Motherboard had a good story on groups like these a while back, and what makes people join them:
But by and large, players are content to combine role-play with their personal profiles. The consensus is that most of these players are very young, likely in their early teens. As a generation who learned to write fanfic before they learned to tweet, it makes sense that they view Facebook as a creative outlet. The games they engage in—everything from werewolf conventions to Sherlock-themed mafia wars—serve as an outlet for the bitching, the drama, and the Machiavellian self-advancement which might otherwise turn into cyberbullying.
They have grown up with a very different concept of ‘me IRL’: any online setting is fair game for self-fashioning. Fantasy role-play, the ultimate anti-selfie, helps to ease players into real life. It serves as training for the day when they role-play as themselves.
[...] For all its eccentricity, role-playing appears to come naturally to those who do it. And yet it goes against everything Facebook wants of us—a service that even manages to harvest shadow profiles on people that haven’t signed up. To join the social network but then act out of character confounds the patterns Facebook aims to record. In a small way it disrupts the slow, pernicious blandness that social media encourages, letting our alter egos spill out messily around the edges.
The Disney Pixar Cars Roleplay people have 36 freaking rules about how to properly pretend you’re a talking car on Facebook, and have a big list of characters from the Cars movies roleplayers can pick from.
I’m not really clear how seriously anyone takes this, or what people get out of it, but, whatever, if they’re having fun, have at it. Well, at least until I saw this:
Gaaah! What the hell am I looking at? It looks like a heavily warped and serpentined 1966 VW 1300 Beetle with... balls? Breasts? What the hell are those pendulous grey sacks of terror there?
Though, as terrifying as this is, I should point out that the eyes are in their proper location in the headlights. I’m just not sure this helps my argument or not.
There’s other puzzling stuff to outsiders, too, like this strange text message conversation with ‘Mom’ and this odd Lightning McQueen drawing that seems to be placed into all sorts of images and inside joke-y memes, and these humanized Mater and Lightning McQueen people.
So, make what you will of who these people are, and what their windshield-eyes goals may be.
Me personally, I have no problem with them! As far as I’m concerned, they’re good folks, part of the rich tapestry that is the Internet. From a cultural and sociological standpoint, what they’re doing is fascinating.
And if you think about it another way, these people are car enthusiasts like we are... just in a very different way.
What I do have a problem with is them being chronically wrong about the placement of eyes on anthropomorphic cars. And trying to get me fired, because that was a dick move.
In the interest of full disclosure, this email did start a discussion among the Jalopnik Supreme Council, which consists of Jalopnik Prime Minister Matt Hardigree, Jalopnik Managing Imperator Patrick George, and Gawker Media owner Nick Denton. A portion of their discussion is reproduced here:
Hardigree: Look, we all know the Disney Pixar Cars Roleplay group. Everyone knows them. I don’t think we have much of a choice here; Jason has to go.
George: Also, he’s kind of a dipshit.
Hardigree: Yes, yes, exactly. Such a dipshit.
Denton: Wait, who?
George: That dipshit. The little one, with the hair and that... that face.
Hardigree: Crap, wait. His contract is pretty weird. I don’t think we can fire him unless we get the American Council of Churches on board. And they’re totally in his pocket.
Denton: Wait, who?
In the end, it was decided I would be kept on, for now at least.
And I want to take this moment to re-iterate my stand: the eyes of a car are the headlights. Not the windshield. Sure, successful cartoon cars have used the windshield for the eyes — Susie the Little Blue Coupe comes to mind, and that provided the stylistic influence for Cars — but that doesn’t mean it’s right, philosophically.
I know why the Cars movies use this degenerate method of ocular placement — Pixar’s Jay Ward
But that doesn’t mean it’s the right way. It’s just a compromise they felt compelled to use. (Hell, they even got it right with at least one car, Celine Dephare, in Cars 2.)
I’m certain at some point in the future, a more enlightened and bold Pixar will go back and correct their error, and place the eyes where they belong, in the headlights. Deep down, they know it’s true.
Look, I understand how important a group of people, some of whom are possibly adults, who pretend to be characters from cars on Facebook is. Nobody is arguing with the value this organization brings to society and humanity itself. But it’s time this group accepts that while the Cars movies may use the debased windshield-eyes method, the one, true way to anthropomorphize a car is by having the headlights be the eyes.
Look at nearly any actual car, and you’ll see: the headlights are clearly the eyes of the car’s face. And no threats to my job or myself will ever change that. Even if you modify pictures of me to include car-windshield-eyes, like this one they did of me in front of a VW Brasilia:
Sure, pictures like that sting. They sting badly. But I remain undaunted. I’m sorry, Disney Pixar Cars Roleplay group. The original post stays up. I’m not getting fired. Because truth will always have a place here at Jalopnik.
So, to answer your first question, that’s where I fucking think I get off.
What is more fierce: a Moschino Barbie or a young boy with a fauxhawk enthusing about a Moschino Barbie? Luckily, you do not have to choose—both are in the commercial above for the $150 doll. But if you did have to choose, always bet on the kid with the fauxhawk gagging, “Moschino Barbie is so fierce!” It’s progress. It’s just common sense.
[h/t Towleroad]
Consider this: billionaires suck.
Income inequality is at an all time high. The world’s 80 richest people have as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent. By 2016, Oxfam International predicts the richest one percent of people will own more than every other human on the planet. Billionaires, however, are not a necessary part of our great economy. They are, in fact, a giant vacuum sucking wealth from those who create it, and hoarding it until there’s none left for the rest of us.
So it’s time this circle-jerk of policy creation and wealth hoarding was opened up to the masses. In the third installment of Gawker’s ongoing series, the Billionaire Shit List, we peek inside the world of Sheldon Adelson, the world’s 18th richest man.
Sheldon Adelson
Casinos
$31.4 billion (699,332 times the net worth of the average American).
Adelson, now 82, was born poor in the Dorchester section of Boston and quickly forgot his humble roots after making a bunch of money with the development of a computer trade show in Las Vegas. In the late 1980s, he bought the Sands Casino, and rapidly began expanding it. He now owns The Venetian and The Palazzo, as well as a casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, one in Singapore, and one of the most expensive-to-build resorts in the world: The Sands Macao.
Yes
Very evil. As Adelson amassed billions, he also became increasingly convinced that Democrats were a force out to destroy the world, especially Israel. “I didn’t leave the Democrats,” Adelson once wrote. “They left me.” Over time, he’s become known for using his money and power to skew the political landscape, second only to the Koch Brothers in the level of control he has over the Republican Party.
Adelson has spent hundreds of millions trying to get extreme right-wingers in office. But unlike the Koch brothers, Adelson isn’t very good at organizing a real movement. The Koch’s—whatever you think of their politics—were at least smart in how they spent their millions, creating an entire political “grassroots” faction of the Republican Party from scratch (the Tea Party). Adelson operates more like a Republican sugar daddy, flying candidates to Vegas to meet him in his office, or to Israel so they can see heart at the center of his politics.
The current crop of Republican presidential candidates are equally terrified by and enamored with Adelson. He represents their interests, but he can also make or break a campaign. In 2012 he spent $20 million supporting Newt Gingrich, nearly derailing Romney’s primary run. This year, every candidate is doing their best to woo him. Marco Rubio calls Adelson every other week to try to get his support. When Jeb Bush hired a foreign policy advisor who was critical of Israel’s diplomatic actions, Adelson forced Bush to issue an apology.
To some degree, Adelson is more liberal than the Koch brothers—he’s identified himself as progressive on most social issues. In other ways, he’s just as conservative, hoping his money will convince candidates to support lower taxes on the rich.
When it comes to Middle Eastern politics, Adelson is outright batshit. He’s vocally supported the idea of the U.S. preemptively dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran to prevent the country from developing their own nuclear technology. A “two-state solution” to him in Israel is nonsensical because, to Adelson, Palestine is not a state, and “Palestinian” isn’t even a legitimate label for Palestinians because they’re an “invented people” whose sole purpose is to destroy Israel.
Given his radical views, it’s a bit disconcerting that he’s best buds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two often dine together after Netanyahu’s U.N. speeches, at which Adelson is usually given a front-row seat.
Israel doesn’t have Super PACs so Adelson has figured out other ways to influence the country’s politics. He started a free daily newspaper, Israel Hayom, in 2007, which now has the largest circulation of any paper in the country. It’s essentially a propaganda rag for Netanyahu—locals refer to it as Bibiton (as in Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister’s nickname).
Adelson has also helped funnel $50 million into trying to stop the growing Boycott Divest Sanction movement on college campuses.
Additionally, Adelson’s business practices are pretty shady. He’s dodged billions of taxes by funneling his money through 30 trusts. To get his mega-casino complex built in Macao, he likely bribed Chinese officials. And his labor standards in the U.S. are not great: he’s actively fought unionization at all of his casinos, and has refused to negotiate with a union at his casino in Pennsylvania even after he was ordered to do so by the National Labor Relations Board.
Even if, one day, Adelson decided to spend all of his money adopting puppies from inhumane animal shelters instead of helping turn the U.S. into an oligarchy, it wouldn’t make up for the evil required to make his billions in the first place.
Modern-day casinos are, essentially, one of the great American scams. They steal from the poor, and the towns the poor live in, with promises of wealth at an individual and municipal level. Casinos sell the idea that the lives of capitalism’s underclass can be made better with a little luck, only to take more of each person’s money when one buys into the dream. Similar promises are made to municipalities—local governments are lobbied to believe that if only casinos are allowed to make people like Adelson rich, governments will soon see a light at the end of the austerity tunnel. That wealth almost never materializes. The house always wins.
9/10
[Image via Getty]
Around 9:20 p.m. Central Europe Time, a series of seemingly coordinated attacks broke out simultaneously across the city of Paris. By the time authorities were in control of the situation, at least 132 people were dead, with hundreds more injured. Here’s everything we know so far about the attacks, the alleged attackers, and the aftermath of the deadliest night in recent European history.
The attacks centered around at least six spots including several popular restaurants, a live music hall, and a football stadium. Officials tell the New York Times the assaults appeared to carried out by three coordinated teams traveling in black cars who were armed with assault rifles and suicide vests.
The night of horror reportedly began around 9:20 p.m., when a man detonated a suicide vest outside the Stade de France, where French President François Hollande was watching the German and French football teams play.
According to reports, the bomber had a ticket for the event but blew himself up after he was stopped by security.
A second bomb went off around ten minutes later but did not cause immediate alarm inside the stadium, where some attendees assumed the noise was coming from firecrackers.
At 9:53, a third bomb went off—this time reportedly near a McDonalds.
At the same time, at approximately 9:25 p.m., gunmen began shooting at establishments across the city. The first shots were fired in the 10th Arrondissement, where armed men inside a black vehicle killed at least 15 diners inside and around two restaurants: Le Petit Cambodge and Le Carillon.
“It took us a while to register what had happened,” one woman who was dining around the corner and heard the shots ring out tells the New York Times. “I looked at my iPhone and I had many worried calls. This is one of the most densely populated areas in Paris. There is no place that is more full on a Friday night. This is a place where young people hang out. It was a hit at the soul of Paris.”
Minutes later—at approximately 9:32 p.m.—the same black car drove by the Cafe Bonne Bière in the 11th Arrondissement. The gunmen inside the car reportedly killed at least five people before speeding off.
By 9:40, the car had hit at least two more establishments, including La Belle Équipe, where two gunman reportedly exited the car and sprayed the outdoor dining area with bullets, killing at least 19 people.
Nearby, at the Comptoir Voltaire restaurant in the 11th Arrondissement, a suicide bomber detonated a vest, reportedly seriously wounding at least one person.
But the most deadly attack of all was centered around the Bataclan concert hall—also located in the 11th Arrondissement—where more than 1,000 people were watching an American band called the Eagles of Death Metal perform.
Authorities tell the Times a third team of gunmen entered the theater around 9:40 p.m. and began shooting attendees “indiscriminately” for more than two hours.
“At first we said, ‘Oh, it’s a joke, the band is playing a joke,’ ” French celebrity Ginnie Watson tells the Times. “But then the shots kept going and kept going and kept going. Then we saw people were crying, and the members of the band ran offstage. They didn’t come back, and then I saw people screaming and that’s when I said, ‘O.K., we have to get out of here.’”
Police finally regained control of the arena shortly after midnight, around 12:20 a.m. By that time, at least 89 people were dead inside.
Officials have identified the mastermind of the attacks as a Belgian jihadist named Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who’s been tied to several thwarted attacks including the Paris high-speed train attack
http://gawker.com/belgian-man-id...
Other attackers were not so lucky: French officials say one of the dead stadium attackers was Ahmad Al Mohammad, a 25-year-old man with a Syrian passport who may have entered Europe through Greece along with a flood of refugees in October.
Another suicide bomber, who detonated at the Bataclan concert hall, was identified as 28-year-old Samy Amimour. According to the AP, he was a French native wanted “on international arrest warrant.”
And a man shot dead at the Bataclan concert hall was reportedly identified as 29-year-old Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, believed to be from a town outside Paris called Courcouronnes. “He had a criminal record and was known to be involved in extremist Islamic ideology,” prosecutor François Molins tells the Times.
Turkish officials say they warned French authorities in 2014 and 2015 that Mostefaï posted a risk but did not hear back until after the attacks Friday.
Still, authorities believe there are more attackers still at large.
According to reports, French police launched more than 168 raids over the weekend, arresting at least 28 people and placing another 104 under house arrest. The Times reports that cops recovered “19 weapons, including 19 handguns, eight long guns and four heavy weapons, as well as computer hardware, mobile phones and narcotics” during the raids. From the Times:
In one home in the Rhône department, [France’s Interior Minister] Mr. Cazeneuve said, the police found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, three automatic pistols, ammunition and bulletproof vests. Officers obtained a warrant to search the home of the parents of one suspect, where they found several automatic pistols, ammunition, police armbands, military clothing and a rocket launcher.
Over the border in Belgium, a full-scale manhunt unfolded in the small town of Molenbeek, a Muslim-dominated community where a 26-year-old suspect named Salah Abdeslam is believed to be hiding. Authorities believe he was involved in the attacks Friday, which his brother Ibrahim reportedly died executing. A third Abdeslam brother was reportedly detained Saturday and later released.
Officers clad in balaclavas raided the town for hours, during which time at least two small explosions were heard, according to the AP.
At least seven men were arrested there during the series of raids this weekend, though some were later released. Belgian officials are also reportedly trying to determine if a man arrested last week with weapons and a GPS programmed for Paris was connected to the attacks.
German officials are also reportedly investigating claims that an Algerian man warned migrants that an attack on Paris was imminent.
The Times has a comprehensive rundown on the known dead so far:
Several foreigners, including people from Belgium, Britain, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United States, were killed in the attacks.
An American student from California State University in Long Beach, Nohemi Gonzalez, 23, died in the Paris attacks. She was spending a semester at the Strate School of Design in Paris.
Valentin Ribet, a 26-year-old lawyer, was killed at the Bataclan. Guillaume B. Decherf, 43, a music critic at a French magazine and a father of two, was killed as well. Three employees from Universal Music France also died, as did Nick Alexander, a British citizen who sold merchandise for the band, and Aurélie De Peretti, 33.
The Guardian also has a list of victims with some photos and profiles.
And reports are still rolling in.
One victim, Ludo Boumbas, reportedly died throwing himself in front of a gunman outside La Belle Equipe. “Ludo threw himself forward to protect a girl and took the bullet,” a friend tells the Daily News.
Other survivors have posted harrowing tales on social media. In a Facebook post, one woman described playing dead for more than an hour while the attackers continued to shoot people.
http://jezebel.com/woman-posts-te...
One pregnant woman apparently tried to jump from the building before she was pulled back to safety by a man identified only as Sebastian.
Another survivor says he was saved by his prosthetic leg.
“So he was on the floor, legs bent and the terrorist kicked his leg to see if he was dead,” the man’s daughter, Valentine, reportedly told Euronews. “My dad gasped a little bit.
“The man did it again, twice or three times again,” she continued. “What happened next? The man stopped beside him, he fired shots just 30 centimeters [12 inches] from his head.”
France immediately declared a national emergency—the first since 2005—and military troops are currently patrolling the capital. Calling the attacks “an act of war,” the country launched full-scale airstrikes against ISIS operatives in Raqqa on Sunday—a dramatic escalation of attacks on Syrian militants and oil operations that began in September.
“It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, Daesh [ISIS], against France,” President François Hollande said Saturday. “It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside, which the investigation will help establish.”
The US is currently supporting the airstrikes but Obama has emphasized that a ground attack is currently out of the question.
Currently, the country is in its third and final day of national mourning and public institutions like “schools, museums, libraries, pools, food markets” are still reportedly closed. The city’s main airport, Charles de Gaulle, is still open but has apparently been hobbled with “significant delays.”
Images via AP. Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.
A photo of an alleged suicide bomber involved in Friday’s terrorist attacks on Paris, picked up by multiple media outlets, turned out to be a photoshopped version of a Canadian freelance writer’s old selfie.
Veerender Jubbal, who describes himself as “a Sikh dude with a turban,” lives near Toronto and says he’s never been to Paris. In the original 2014 photo, he was holding an iPad, but the altered version replaces it with a Qur’an and adds a wired vest over Jubbal’s shirt.
Jubbal’s face made it to the front page of Spanish newspaper La Razon, where it was thumbnailed with the caption “one of the terrorists.” The paper later apologized on Twitter:
Several other European news outlets also picked up the bogus photo and claimed it showed one of the attackers, the CBC reports.
BuzzFeed reports the image spread through ISIS channels after being shared by “one of the largest — though unofficial — pro-ISIS channels on Telegram, the app that the extremist group used to take credit for the attacks in Paris,” but people on social media spotted it as a fake.
But who Photoshopped Jubbal’s selfie to begin with, and why was he targeted? Jubbal thinks he knows.
Last year, he became an outspoken critic of Gamergate
Jubbal left Twitter earlier this year after being harassed by GamerGaters who photoshopped fake tweets and attributed them to him, Buzzfeed notes. He believes they’re doing it again.
At the very least, some of them are quite pleased about what he’s been put through over the past couple of days:
[h/t CBC]
What makes a hero? A blue background, perhaps. The action of holding a slate. A barbed wire tattoo on the left arm. Hair on face. Shirt. Smile. Ah, I don’t know—but get a load of this.
Blake Shelton found himself in Oklahoma last weekend. What brought him to Oklahoma is not for us to say—it’s not his hometown, if that’s maybe what you guessed—but what happened there is for us to say.
—For us to say thank you.
According to E!, four men were by a river somewhere when something happened. E! spoke to one of the men named Bryar Blanton, and I’ll let him take it away:
“We were at the river looking and slid off into a mud hole for about two hours. Then me and my buddy Adrian started walking and Blake Shelton stopped and asked if we needed some help.”
What is this new life? A mud hole. One minute you’re at the river looking, the next you’re in a mud hole. What is time in a mud hole—two hours, two days. Time bends and stretches and sinks into the mud.
At that point, Blake Shelton got his tractor and got them out of the mud hole. Let’s hear the story again:
“We were at the river looking and slid off into a mud hole for about two hours. Then me and my buddy Adrian started walking and Blake Shelton stopped and asked if we needed some help.”
And one more time:
“We were at the river looking and slid off into a mud hole for about two hours.”
Mud hole, mud hole.
Contact the author at kelly.conaboy@gawker.com.
The Pacific Ocean gifted us with a whale of a storm that will make this week a mess for just about everybody. The approaching disturbance will trigger dangerous thunderstorms in the south, another blizzard in Colorado, flooding rains, and usher forth an abrupt end to the unusually warm air that’s bathed us for so long.
This storm system, which produced thunderstorms that spawned a tornado in California yesterday, is reminiscent of the system that chugged through the center of the country last week (pictured above). The previous storm led to blizzard conditions east of Denver, severe weather in the Midwest, and roaring winds across the Great Lakes. That system received a good amount of attention because of how absurd it seemed to people with short attention spans. One spot seeing tornadoes, thunderstorms, warm temperatures, and snow all in the same day is cool, yeah!, but that’s how fall works.
That’s what the weather should be like in November. We’re supposed to have these huge troughs dig through the country and spawn lows that generate the whole spectrum of weather in one day. Winter does not arrive silently. It’s not supposed to be in the 60s in November outside of the south. As nice as it is, it’s easy for us to forget that this isn’t normal.
That being said, the atmosphere seems to be doing its best to return things to normal, though. Look at this beauty:
This is what the GFS model says the jet stream looks like early this afternoon. The contours show heights while the colors show winds in MPH. The jet stream is up around 30,000 feet today, give or take a thousand.
The trough is so strong that it broke the jet stream, leaving one tendril flapping away up in Canada while the stronger half points its air cannon at the Rockies and central United States. An upper-level low is developing in that trough, and the large-scale lift in the atmosphere will allow a defined surface low to form on the eastern slopes of the Rockies this evening.
At the surface, warm air and moisture are flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico; above is a map showing surface dew points (warm colors equal muggier air) with surface winds. The forcing from the approaching low, combined with the unstable air over the southern Plains and strong wind shear through the atmosphere, will all come together to trigger nasty thunderstorms across the area today.
As a result, the Storm Prediction Center has issued an enhanced risk for severe thunderstorms—a three on a scale from zero to five—across the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma. These areas aren’t too terribly populated, but even a town with a few dozen people in the path of a tornado is a a few dozen too many.
The risk for tornadoes is the headline-grabber of the day, as usual.
A 10% risk doesn’t seem like much, but that’d be high on a regular day in spring. Remember, these percentages don’t work like the chance of rain. Tornadoes are much less common than showers, so a lower percent is of greater concern. The black hatching indicates the risk for strong (EF-2+) tornadoes.
As we see so many times with severe weather, the risk will come in two rounds. The first round of storms—developing this afternoon—will be discrete supercells, which carry the greatest risk for tornadoes and large hail. As the evening wears on, these storms should congeal into a squall line that moves east, with the threat transitioning to damaging winds with some quick, spin-up tornadoes possible along the leading edge.
Strong thunderstorms will roll through bigger cities in Oklahoma and Texas late tonight and early tomorrow morning. The simulated radar above, from the latest run of the high resolution North American Model, shows where the squall line could be at 3:00 AM CST.
Severe weather at night is more dangerous than it is during the day because people aren’t awake to receive alerts. Make sure you have a way to hear a warning if one is issued.
The threat for severe weather will shift east on Tuesday, with the northern Gulf Coast taking the brunt of the bad weather. Tornadoes, large hail, and damaging winds are possible there, too, with the most significant storms unfolding across Louisiana and Arkansas.
Not only is there a risk for strong severe thunderstorms tomorrow, but the storms that do form will bring very heavy rain to the Deep South and Midwest. Flash flood watches are in effect from the Louisiana coast up through central Illinois in anticipation of up to five inches of rain falling in the period of one day tomorrow.
The above forecast from the Weather Prediction Center shows the entire eastern half of the country receiving at least an inch of rain over the next seven days, but most of it will fall before the end of this week.
Here’s a riddle: why did the person drive across the flooded road? Because he was an idiot. Don’t be an idiot
Cheyenne County, Kansas, as of the writing of this post, is under a blizzard warning, a severe thunderstorm warning, and a tornado watch, with an air temperature of 66°F. If that doesn’t speak to the awesome nature of these classic November storms, I don’t know what does.
Denver and its suburbs are under a blizzard warning tonight and tomorrow in anticipation of heavy snow combined with strong winds. Blizzards occur when strong winds and blowing snow reduce visibility to one-quarter of a mile for several hours at a time. Even after the snow stops falling, snow on the ground can blow around and reduce visibility to nothing, creating a “ground blizzard.”
The National Weather Service is calling for ten inches of snow in Denver by Tuesday evening, with more than a foot to the south and east of the city and its immediate suburbs. More than two feet of snow could fall on Pike’s Peak and other higher elevations. Snowfall totals will vary greatly from location to location, and areas caught under a persistent, heavier band could see higher totals than currently forecast.
Don’t venture outside during the worst of the storm unless it’s absolutely necessary. Whiteout conditions are extremely dangerous both on foot and in a vehicle—you’d be surprised by how easily you can get disoriented and lost in a whiteout, even on your own property.
Once the cold front pushes its way through and the weather settles down, temperatures will start to return to a more normal state for the week before Thanksgiving. That’s not to say that we won’t see a few more spells of above-average temperatures, but if the GFS model is any indication, our Septemberest November Ever is drawing to an end and the onslaught of cheery music and decorations and movies and fake snow and ho-ho-hoing won’t seem so out of place.
Take a look at the GFS model’s predicted temperature trend in Minneapolis, for example.
And in Greensboro, N.C., home of The Vane’s glass-enclosed nerdquarters:
And even down there in the Big D:
Fall is dead. Long live fall.
[Severe Weather/Rain/Satellite Map: Author | Model Images: GREarth | Snow Forecast: NWS EDD | Model Temperatures: WeatherBELL]
Email: dennis.mersereau@gawker.com | Twitter: @wxdam
My new book, The Extreme Weather Survival Manual, is now available! You can order it from Amazon and find it on the shelves and websites of retailers near you.
Last week, IKEA workers in Stoughton, Massachusetts asked the company to recognize their request to unionize
At long last, Kristin Cavallari has revealed the name of another
Inspirato.
This has been 500 Days of Kristin.
[Photo via Getty]
A source with “direct knowledge” of the interview announced earlier today confirmed to CNNMoney that Charlie Sheen will discuss his HIV status with the “Today” show’s Matt Lauer on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, TMZ reports that Sheen has been receiving treatment and the virus is now undetectable in his system.
http://gawker.com/report-charlie...
Hollywood publicist and crisis manager Howard Bragman told People magazine that Sheen’s people approached him six months ago. Bragman, who is not working with Sheen, said he was told the actor “is getting treatment, and a lot of people in his life know about it.”
We’re told Charlie freely admits he’s had scores of sexual partners over the years, many of whom had intimate relations with him after his diagnosis. The implication here is clear ... Charlie is saying he didn’t deceive anyone, since the blood tests did not reveal the presence of HIV.
Doctors beg to differ and say once someone has HIV they have it for life, at least until medicine advances.
According to NAM, researcher Alison Rodger was asked, while presenting the results of a study last year into whether people with HIV on antiretroviral therapy become non-infectious, what the chances were of someone with an undetectable viral load transmitting HIV. “Our best estimate is it’s zero,” she said.
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
Ready your smarm, all-too-vocal crypto-racist types! Georgetown University will rename two buildings previously named for school presidents who owned and sold slaves, reports the Washington Post.
Mulledy Hall, a new student dormitory named for the president who authorized the sale of about 272 slaves to a Louisiana plantation owner in 1838, will be called Freedom Hall until a permanent name is chosen.
Thomas F. Mulledy, a Jesuit priest, organized the sale of slaves after stepping down as president of Georgetown, and reportedly “used the proceeds from the slave sale to pay off debt the university had incurred from new building.” Even back in 1838 the sale was controversial: “some Jesuits at the time believed the slaves should have been freed, and Mulledy ignored instructions from church officials to keep slave families together.”
This is definitely not someone who should have his name affixed to a building on an American university.
The other building, McSherry Hall, was named after William McSherry, who, as president “sold off some Jesuit-owned slaves before Mulledy’s larger sale and advised Mulledy in the 1838 sale,” according to David J. Collins, a Georgetown history professor and Jesuit priest.
This is a university acting responsibly, but, inevitably, the change didn’t happen without campus action by concerned students.
A reported 250 Georgetown students and other activists gathered to show solidarity with students protesting the failure of administrators at the University of Missouri and Yale University to take complaints about racism and racial incidents on their campuses seriously.
At the Georgetown demonstration, student leaders announced a sit-in outside DeGioia’s office Friday morning to protest the two building names. About 50 people sat outside DeGioia’s office at the peak of the sit-in Friday afternoon, doing homework on their laptops and eating pizza sent by supportive alumni, organizers said.
What’s more, Queen Adesuyi, an organizer of the protests—which, again, were successful, and achieved something irrefutably good—said their actions gained support from the “momentum” of student protests on campuses around the country.
From a Georgetown Voice report:
In a post on the Facebook page for this week’s events, student organizer Queen Adesuyi (COL ‘16), wrote, “We will continue to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters on other campuses and we will continue to hold Georgetown accountable for the student life of Black students and other students of color on campus.”
Unlike the many internet alarmists decrying other campus actions, John DeGioia, Georgetown’s current president, along with a working group assigned to address the issue, listened to and carefully considered the concerns of students of color:
“[The Black Leadership Forum and other students’] words are shaped by a thoughtfulness, a passion, and a spirit of constructive engagement that we appreciate deeply and hope will sustain us through the course of this important and painful conversation about our history and its legacy,” the working group wrote in its resolution and recommendation to DeGioia. “We are especially moved by the concern for the naming of buildings and the identification of special sites on campus, such as burial plots.”
[...]
“As a University, we are a place where conversations are convened and dialogue is encouraged, even on topics that may be difficult. This is what we will continue to do at Georgetown,” DeGioia wrote. “We are supportive of our students and proud of the depth of their engagement in these urgent conversations. These issues require the very best of each of us and call us to continue to come together as a community to engage this important work.”
“Freedom Hall” and “Remembrance Hall” will serve as interim designations while the working group brainstorms permanent names. Students, buoyed by their success and empowered by the open-mindedness of their school’s administration, “say they also want the university to pay reparations by establishing an endowment that, accounting for inflation, would match what the university made from the slave sale. The money, they said, should provide scholarships or a professorship based on race issues.”
Right on, Georgetown.
[Washington Post] [Georgetown Voice]
Image via AP
Real-life comic book villain Rupert Murdoch emerged from the algae-encrusted slime cave he dwells in on Monday to give his sage musings on the news of the day.
After the deadly attacks in Paris that left 129 dead and hundreds more injured
The Australian businessman and chairman of News Corp. suggested that “proven Christians” be admitted into the U.S., implying that non-Christians should be barred.
“The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” reads the Bible that Christians ascribe to. Surely Murdoch, a man whose greed knows no bounds, could never himself even be included in the category “proven Christians.”
Other politicians have said similar things in the past few days. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said that Muslims fleeing ISIS should be moved to “majority Muslim countries.” But if they’re Christian, according to Cruz, they can come to the U.S.:
“On the other hand Christians who are being targeted for genocide, for persecution, Christians who are being beheaded or crucified, we should be providing safe haven to them. But President Obama refuses to do that.”
Jeb Bush made a similar statement, while other candidates have argued against letting in any refugees. President Obama reacted by saying that the government does not “have religious tests to our compassion.”
“When I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful.”
[Image via Getty]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
Early on Monday, the Associated Press reports, a bear in rural Maryland got his head stuck in a metal milk can.
Wildlife workers tranquilized the adult male black bear before using an electric hand saw to remove the milk can, Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Karis King said.
King said the bear lifted his head and walked into the woods after regaining consciousness.
Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
Last week, Deadspin published a transcript
Friel has had her hands on high-profile cases in the NFL for a few years now. After the league was faced with both Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice scandals in 2014, Friel became part of a team of four women instated to the NFL to help combat domestic violence problems within the organization. Since then she has seen a promotion, though her effectiveness on the topic has left something to be desired by those who want to see wiser handling of these cases. (The Hardy hearing transcripts, for example, show that Friel remained silent when the line of questioning directed at Hardy was focused on the physical abuse sustained by Holder.)
That said, when we saw that the lawyer would be speaking at an event at a local high school boldly titled, “Crime Fighting and the NFL: Addressing Domestic Violence and Sexual Misconduct,” we obviously registered to attend. The event was listed as open to the public, and is hosted by the Regis Bar Association—an organization that links the elite, all-boys school’s alumni with students interested in pursuing a career in law. We paid the $20 admission fee last Wednesday, and got a friendly confirmation email.
From: Regis High School Events
Date: Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 5:44 PM
Subject: The RBA Presents - Lisa Friel Acknowledgement
Thank you for registering! The advancements we have made can be attributed in many ways to people like you who have generously supported our mission.
Please print and keep this letter as a confirmation of your registration.
This morning, however, we received an email from the school’s Director of Alumni Relations, asking us to explain how we had heard about the event.
From: Catapano, Vincent
Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:27 AM
Subject: Regis High School Speaker: Lisa Friel
Hello- Thank you for registering for the Regis High School speaker series and our guest speaker Lisa Friel tomorrow evening. In order for us to better track where our non-Regis affiliated participants are coming from and how they heard about our event would you please share how you heard about our event. I thank you in advance for sharing this information as it will help us plan future events and also look at ways to increase our reach to a broader community as we expand our speaker series in the coming months. I look forward to hearing back from you.
Before we had figured out a way to reply, we received another email, this time from the educational-institution-for-real-teenagers’ Director of Communication, who told us that the event was now only open to “members of the Regis community” and closed to the media.
From: Hein, Thomas
Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 1:19 PM
Subject: Event Closed
Thank you for your interest in our upcoming event with Lisa Friel P’08. Unfortunately, this Regis Bar Association event is only open to members of the Regis community and is also closed to the media. We will refund your registration fee, and apologize for the confusion. Thank you for understanding and respecting our event policy.
We sent an email to both Thomas and Catapano asking for further information about why our tickets were refunded, and received the following response from Catapano:
From: Catapano, Vincent
Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 4:33 PM
Subject: RE: Event Closed
Thank you for your email. This event was intended for the members of the Regis community and as per school regulations no outside media are permitted to attend. Due to the fact that you have clear connections to multiple media organizations we unfortunately must refund your admission and cancel your ticket. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
Within an hour after our first reply from Catapano, the event listing’s webpage had also been modified. Where it previously had no limit on who could register for the event, the site now has an additional note “**This Regis Bar Association event is only open to members of the Regis community and is closed to the media.”
If you are a student at Regis High School and successfully attend this lecture for teens, please let us know how it goes.
Image taken from YouTube. Contact the author at puja@deadspin.com
At a press conference on Monday, President Obama criticized those who have called for more invasive strategies in the United States and elsewhere to combat ISIS. “If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they want to do, present a specific plan,” he said.
According to The Guardian, reporters urged Obama to “take out these bastards.”
“What I am not interested in doing is posing, or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with,” Obama said, making a clear reference to Donald Trump’s most reliable campaign rhetoric. “I’m too busy for that.” On Monday, Trump said that mosques should be monitored and possibly shut down
Obama categorically ruled out sending troops into Syria, CNBC reports, calling it a “mistake.”
“Not because our military could not march into...Raqqa and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we’ve seen before,” he said. “If you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, then they resurface.”
“Let’s assume we send 50,000 troops into Syria. What happens when there is a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send more troops into there?”
Obama also called recent proposals
http://gawker.com/ted-cruz-says-...
“The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism,” he said. “They are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife. They are parents. They are children. They are orphans.
“It is very important...that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.”
At least 18 Republican governors and one Democratic governor have asked the State department not to relocate Syrian refugees in their states. “The fact is that we need for appropriate vetting and I don’t think orphans under 5 are being—should be admitted into the United States at this point,” New Jersey governor and presidential candidate Chris Christie said in an interview.
H/T VSB. Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
At last, there’s good news for those of us who live life in a series of coffee-breaks punctuated by periods of anxiety-filled withdrawal.
According to a new study, drinking three to five cups of coffee each day is correlated with a 15 percent lower risk of dying prematurely from diabetes, heart disease, suicide or Parkinson’s. The study, published by researchers at the Harvard University Chan School of Public Health in the journal Circulation, found that the benefits were markedly higher when people drank a “moderate” amount of coffee — rather than just one or two cups.
The study used data from surveys of over 300,000 nurses and health professionals who answer questions over a period of 30 years.
Scientists have been examining the health benefits of coffee for years, finding research that notes it may help decrease the risk of stroke and Type 2 diabetes, as well as increase cognitive functioning.
It’s not exactly clear just why coffee beans are having these particular health effects, study co-author Walter Willet told NPR.
We’re not sure exactly how coffee is [linked] to all these benefits. The coffee bean itself is loaded with many different nutrients and phytochemicals. And my guess is that they’re working together to have some of these benefits.
There’s no direct causation or a perfect recommended dose yet, but the evidence suggesting that drinking coffee can have considerable health benefits is compelling.
Researchers caution that the findings don’t apply to everyone, and that too much coffee can lead to insomnia and lack of sleep. Also, the study didn’t take into include questions on supplements like caffeine pills. The jury’s still out on those, but — I don’t know, they seem pretty safe to me.
[Image via Getty]
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
There are lots of great things about this video. Here they are, in descending order:
5. Great kick by teenage boy; solid goal.
4. GoPro left unattended; suspense building.
3. Visibly yellow torrent of dog pee streaming onto the GoPro.
2. “Tyson, no!”
1. “Oh my GOD.”
Note: aren’t all GoPros waterproof? Just run it under the hose, buddy, it’ll be fine.
h/t DeathandTaxes
Contact the author at melissa.cronin@gawker.com.
Police said that the bodies of two newborn babies found dumped in a North Philadelphia alley early on Sunday morning had already been autopsied, according to Philly.com. However, foul play is not suspected in their deaths.
Kasmine Crawford, 9, and a 12-year-old neighbor first stumbled across the bodies on Saturday. He went home and told his father, Ronnie Jackson, who thought he was mistaken. “I saw the two babies,” Kasmine told Philly.com. “I thought it was baby dolls.” Jackson called police the next morning after Kasmine said the bodies had a smell.
“I don’t know who would do that to these babies, or why,” a police spokeswoman, Officer Tanya Little, said. “But I know it’s sad that these babies weren’t properly put to rest.”
The male and female bodies had been preserved and undergone autopsies, the Associated Press reports. A city health department spokesman, Jeff Moran, said that they could have been used for a hospital or university study.
The case is not being investigated as a homicide, Little said, although whoever dumped the bodies there could be charged with abusing a corpse.
Image via 6abc Action News. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.
