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Wednesday, August 16th, 2017

    Time Event
    2:57p
    This is, er, golf cart body-surfing beer-drinking

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/this-is-er-golf-cart-body-su.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541472

    I bet their parents are very proud.

    Occurred on August 9, 2017 / Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, Canada

    A few buddies and I were golfing at one of the local courses, the group ahead of us were moving very slow so while we were waiting on them I came up with the idea. We took a few practice laps down the fairway then got out the beers and camera and made this masterpiece.

    3:10p
    Dogs in Navi Mumbai are turning blue

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/dogs-in-navi-mumbai-are-turnin.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541476

    A number of very unusual-looking blue dogs have been spotted in Navi Mumbai, India. Sadly, the cause is industrial waste in the Kasadi river where stray dogs often wade. From the Hindustan Times:

    A water quality test at Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation found the waste treatment was inadequate. The levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)  the concentration of oxygen required to sustain aquatic life  was 80 milligram a litre (mg/L). Levels of chloride, which is toxic, harms vegetation, aquatic life and wildlife, were also high....

    It was shocking to see how the dogs white fur had turned completely blue, said Arati Chauhan, resident of Navi Mumbai, who runs the (Navi Mumbai Animal Protection Cell). We have spotted almost five such dogs here and have asked the pollution control board to act against such industries.

    MPCB officials said they had taken cognisance of the complaint. Allowing the discharge of dye into any water body is illegal. We will take action against the polluters as they are destroying the environment, said Anil Mohekar, regional officer, MPCB, Navi Mumbai. We have directed our sub-regional officer to investigate, he added.

    Animal rights activists have, however, wondered whether the move comes too late. We have only spotted blue dogs so far. We do not know if birds, reptiles and other creatures are affected or if they have even died owing to the dye discharged into the air, said Chauhan.

    3:38p
    Pantone announces new color honoring Prince

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/pantone-announces-new-color-ho.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541484

    The Pantone Color Institute announced "Love Symbol #2," a shade of purple honoring Prince. A collaboration with Prince's estate, the hue, actually labeled with Prince's logo, is now the official color of his brand. From CNN:

    Pantone has long been the authority on color trends and design. Since 2000, the corporation has released a "Color of the Year" that influences design and marketing. Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, said in a statement that it was an honor to help develop Prince's hue.

    "A musical icon known for his artistic brilliance, Love Symbol #2 is emblematic of Prince's distinctive style," she said. "Long associated with the purple family, Love Symbol #2 enables Prince's unique purple shade to be consistently replicated and maintain the same iconic status as the man himself."

    I only wanted to see you bathing in the Love Symbol #2 rain.

    (Pantone)

    3:42p
    Racist soap dispenser

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/racist-soap-dispenser.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541483

    Chukwuemeka Afigbo of Lagos demonstrates a public toilet soap dispenser that only serves light-skinned people.

    3:44p
    Fox and other conservative sites hastily nuke posts urging vehicular murder of left-wing protesters

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/compassionate-conservatism.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541468

    Last January, the alt-right website Daily Caller ran a post called "Here's A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road," in which drivers endangered the lives of protesters while Ludacris's "Move Bitch" played in the background: the post was syndicated to a Fox websites and many other outposts of the right-wing media. (more…)

    4:12p
    Company's dystopian promotional video for drone armed with machine gun

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/companys-dystopian-promotion.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541496

    What a time to be alive.

    Duke Robotics brings a fully robotic weaponry system to an airborne platform. TIKAD, which is a proprietary development of Duke, uses the delivery of a unique suppression firing and stabilization solution. TIKAD allows governments to utilize completely new capabilities against terrorist groups and reduce the number of deployed ground troops, and therefore, the number of casualties.

    (via Daily Grail)

    4:24p
    What would a new US civil war be like?

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/what-would-a-new-us-civil-war.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541495

    In March, Foreign Policy asked a number of national security experts to estimate the likelihood of a second US civil war in the next 10-15 years. The average estimate was 35%. This was before Charlottesville. Robin Wright of The New Yorker spoke to, Keith Mines, one of the national-security experts that Foreign Policy polled to find out what a new civil war could look like.

    Today, few civil wars involve pitched battles from trenches along neat geographic front lines. Many are low-intensity conflicts with episodic violence in constantly moving locales. Miness definition of a civil war is large-scale violence that includes a rejection of traditional political authority and requires the National Guard to deal with it. On Saturday, McAuliffe put the National Guard on alert and declared a state of emergency.

    Based on his experience in civil wars on three continents, Mines cited five conditions that support his prediction: entrenched national polarization, with no obvious meeting place for resolution; increasingly divisive press coverage and information flows; weakened institutions, notably Congress and the judiciary; a sellout or abandonment of responsibility by political leadership; and the legitimization of violence as the in way to either conduct discourse or solve disputes.

    Image: Roosac/Flickr

    4:28p
    Anyone who continues to work with Trump is complicit in his support of white supremacists

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/anyone-who-continues-to-work-w.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541463

    CNN's Chris Cizilla: Donald Trump's presidency is headed to a very dark place

    The President of the United States has spent the last 24 hours creating some sort of moral equivalency between hate-mongers and those there to protest hate. In doing so, he has handed these white supremacists and neo-Nazis exactly what they want: Cover for their hate-filled rhetoric. Make no mistake: For the bigots and supremacists who gathered in Charlottesville, what Trump said on Saturday and again yesterday marks a major win, a success in their efforts to push their venomous views into the mainstream.

    But this is not a surprise. He's been like this as long as he's been a public figure: Donald Trump Has Been a Racist All His Life  And He Isnt Going to Change After Charlottesville

    Consider the first time the presidents name appeared on the front page of the New York Times, more than 40 years ago. Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City, read the headline of the A1 piece on Oct. 16, 1973, which pointed out how Richard Nixons Department of Justice had sued the Trump familys real estate company in federal court over alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act. ...

    Over the next four decades, Trump burnished his reputation as a bigot: he was accused of ordering all the black [employees] off the floor of his Atlantic City casinos during his visits; claimed laziness is a trait in blacks and not anything they can control; requested Jews in yarmulkes replace his black accountants; told Bryan Gumbel that a well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market; demanded the death penalty for a group of black and Latino teenagers accused of raping a jogger in Central Park (and, despite their later exoneration with the use of DNA evidence, has continued to insist they are guilty); suggested a Native American tribe dont look like Indians to me; mocked Chinese and Japanese trade negotiators by doing an impression of them in broken English; described undocumented Mexican immigrants as rapists; compared Syrian refugees to snakes; defended two supporters who assaulted a homeless Latino man as very passionate people who love this country; pledged to ban a quarter of humanity from entering the United States; proposed a database to track American Muslims that he himself refused to distinguish from the Nazi registration of German Jews; implied Jewish donors want to control politicians and are all sly negotiators; heaped praise on the amazing reputation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has blamed Americas problems on a Jewish mafia; referred to a black supporter at a campaign rally as my African-American; suggested the grieving Muslim mother of a slain U.S. army officer maybe & wasnt allowed to speak in public about her son; accused an American-born Hispanic judge of being a Mexican; retweeted anti-Semitic and anti-black memes, white supremacists, and even a quote from Benito Mussolini; kept a book of Hitlers collected speeches next to his bed; declined to condemn both David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan; and spent five years leading a birther movement that was bent on smearing and delegitimizing the first black president of the United States, who Trump also accused of being the founder of ISIS.

    I wouldn't normally quote at such length, but it's just the surface of Mehdi Hasan reviews.

    Trump's equivocating support of the fine nazis at Charlottesville doesn't mark a change in Trump. But it does knock the lid off the reality show, the veil of cable news blather hung over it all to make it as entertaining a game as possible for the most comfortable Americans.

    Plenty of people – liberals and conservatives alike – are happy to attack Trump's most uncompromising enemies in hopes of centering their own opposition to him. But all they succeed in doing is helping him.

    Heather Heyer was the first victim at Charlottesville. Let complicity be the second.

    4:59p
    Watch Ronald Reagan scold haters: "This country will not stand for your conduct"

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/watch-ronald-reagan-scold-hate.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541507

    Here's a clip from a 1981 NAACP convention speech, where President Ronald Reagan addresses "a few remarks to those groups who still adhere to senseless racism and religious prejudice, to those individuals who persist in such hateful behavior."

    "If I were speaking to them instead of to you, I would say to them, 'You are the ones who are out of step with our society. You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because of what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct.' My administration will vigorously investigate and prosecute those who, by violence or intimidation, would attempt to deny Americans their constitutional rights."

    5:04p
    Trump CEO councils disband over President's response to Charlottesville racist violence

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/ceos-resign-from-trumps-quic.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541509

    CEOs on President Donald Trump's business advisory councils today jumped ship via hastily-issued statements condemning hatred and racism. A flood of resignations from Presidential advisory councils followed Trump's bizarrely candid support of the Nazis and white supremacists who marched with torches in Charlottesville this past weekend. As news of the CEO resignations spread, Trump tweeted that it was he who'd decided to disband, not the execs.

    (more…)

    5:35p
    Watch: Full remarks of Susan Bro, mother of Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer, at memorial

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/heather-heyer-is-a-hero.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541527

    Here is video of the full remarks by Susan Bro, mother of Charlottesville car attack victim Heather Heyer, at her daughter's memorial service.

    (more…)

    6:15p
    Governor Kasich calls Trump's behavior "pathetic" and likens it to Germany in the 1930s

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/governor-kasich-calls-trumps.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541543

    Ohio governor and 2016 presidential candidate John Kasich was fired up on the Today Show this morning, speaking out against the way Trump handled the Charlottesville violence over the weekend that lead to the death of a 32-year-old woman and injured many others. Before he was even asked a question he began his criticism.

    "Pathetic! Isn't it? Just pathetic...It's terrible. This is terrible."

    "The President of the United States needs to condemn these kinds of hate groups. Think about what you have seen!...reminiscent of what we saw in Germany in the 1930s. The president has to totally condemn this...This is a very serious matter"

    "There is a bitterness setting in that may not be able to be removed...He's got to fix this and republicans have got to speak out, plain and simple. Who cares what party you're in?"

    Kasich was right on the mark with everything he said, until he was asked this: "Would you be willing to be the guy who goes around to republican leaders and say that 'this is our moment, we will tell our president we no longer support him, period."

    Unfortunately, Kasich couldn't follow all the way through. He choked. He looked a bit tongue-tied for a split second, and then back-pedaled. "Well Matt, look, he's our president, okay?...He's our president, but he needs to correct what he has said..."

    6:21p
    It's okay for Arkansas to block Medicaid funds going to Planned Parenthood, U.S. appeals court rules

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/its-okay-for-arkansas-to-blo.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541552

    Today, a U.S. appeals court reversed a previous ruling that barred the state of Arkansas from halting Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, after the release of setup videos secretly recorded by anti-abortion, hard-right media provocateurs.

    (more…)

    6:29p
    Dig into hard ice cream with this pointy tip scoop

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/dig-into-hard-ice-cream-with-t-2.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541565

    The old ice cream scoop we had wasn't really an ice cream scoop. It was a disher, and was more suited for scooping mashed potatoes than ice cream. When the trigger mechanism on it finally broke, I happily got rid of it and replaced it with the OXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop ($15). This surprisingly heavy scoop is made from a solid chunk of stainless steel with a comfortable rubber grip, and comes with a pointed end that digs right into hard ice cream, especially if you run hot water over it. It's supposedly dishwasher safe but why put it in the dishwasher? Just rinse it and dry it with a towel.

    6:34p
    David Byrne: The secret appeal of technology is that it takes away the need to talk to people

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/humans-out-of-the-loop.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541492

    Writing in MIT Tech Review, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne points out the secret and, in retrospect, obvious driving force behind tech: it reduces the often awkward and unreliable process of dealing with people, so you can buy music without asking friends for recommendations, take a cab without talking to a dispatcher, buy your groceries without speaking with a clerk, and get your money out of the bank without seeing a teller. (more…)

    6:43p
    Lin-Manuel Miranda's childhood home movies show him busting out dance moves

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/lin-manuel-mirandas-childhoo.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541533

    On The Late Late Show with James Corden, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda said that, while on a recent vacation, he digitized all the VHS home movies he made in his childhood.

    (more…)

    6:48p
    Eclectic Method's latest: 'Goonies Remix'

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/eclectic-methods-latest-g.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541558

    Barcelona-based DJ and music producer Eclectic Method (aka Jonny Wilson) has brought back Mikey, Data, Mouth, Chunk, and the rest of The Goonies gang in his latest remix music video.

    (more…)

    6:59p
    Samsung and Foxconn to back cable-free phone tech by Tony Fadell of iPod and Nest fame

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/tony-fadell-hates-cables-too.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541576

    Tony Fadell is best known "one of the fathers of the iPod" at Apple, and as the former CEO of Nest. We've agreed to forget that he led the Google Glass division for a while, too. Today, news broke that the serial inventor and investor is now working with companies including Samsung Electronics and Foxconn's parent company, Hon Hai Precision Industry, to develop new technology that would allow mobile phone devices to transfer large amounts of data without using wires or WiFi connections.

    (more…)

    7:08p
    When there's just way too much crazy Trump news

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/when-theres-just-way-too-muc.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541584

    We are all the cat hiding in the sink because an uninvited dog is visiting.

    (more…)

    8:43p
    This guy had a stroke after white supremacists doused him in torch fuel and struck him in the neck w

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/this-guy-had-a-stroke-after-wh.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541603

    My friend John Park sent me the following:

    This is an article about my old friend, UVa housemate, fellow Glee Club member, and all around wonderful character, D.R. Tyler Magill, who took on Nazis in Charlottesville and has now suffered a stroke.

    In the video below we see Tyler doing the right thing, in a smart, calm way, as he chased Nazi organizer Jason Kessler from the podium along with a group of fellow protesters. This, despite having already been doused in torch fuel and struck with torches by fascist thugs as he and a group of 25 students were surrounded by the alt-right mob at the base of the statue on Saturday night. At one point he was struck in the neck, which damaged an artery, leading to his stroke.

    He's stable from what we know, and has a fundraising goal to cover sick leave costs, but more publicity about his actions would be a good thing.

    I hope Tyler inspires others to be this brave in the face of fascist thugs.

    https://youtu.be/4xs_-J3BhUM?t=1m35s

    Here's another person who was injured in the same terrorist attack that killed Heather Heyer. Her name is Natalie Romero:

    Here's a USA Today article about Natalie. She was in the Junior ROTC.

    11:42p
    Uncanny Japan: a podcast highlighting "all that is weird from old Japan"

    http://boingboing.net/2017/08/16/thersa-matsuura.html

    http://boingboing.net/?p=541608

    Thersa Matsuura was born and raised in the USA but spent the past 25 years -- more than half her life -- living in a small Japanese fishing village with her husband and son. (more…)

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