March 29, 2017

Senate Intel Committee May Interview Ex-UK Spy Christopher Steele

The Senate Intelligence Committee is in talks to interview Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence operative who compiled the dossier that alleges a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, three sources with direct knowledge told NBC News.

Steele, however, remains concerned about his safety and is not inclined to leave London. He is also concerned about how he might be treated by the Trump administration, according to the sources. The FBI was poised last fall to pay Steele, a former officer with the British Secret Intelligence Service, for information, but that deal fell through, sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

http://www.nbcnews.com/card/senate-intel-committee-may-interview-ex-uk-spy-christopher-steele-n739966?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

March 29, 2017

Apple Takes Down Drone Notification App

After numerous rejections, Apple finally decided to allow a drone-strike notification app back on the App Store Tuesday after it was pulled in 2015 -- and then took it down again hours later.

The app called Metadata, created by Josh Begley from The Intercept, sends a notification every time a U.S. drone strike is reported in the news.

Begley, created the app five years ago and called it Drone+. He said Tuesday in an article for The Intercept Apple rejected the app three times for “excessively objectionable or crude content.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-takes-down-drone-notification-app-metadata-app-store-again-2516661

March 29, 2017

Nearly 2,000 lawyers ask for Jeff Sessions to be disbarred

MONTGOMERY — Almost 2,000 attorneys from across the US have signed on to a complaint addressed to the Alabama State Bar Disciplinary Committee asking that Attorney General Jeff Session be disbarred from the Alabama State Bar.

The complaint, filed by the Lawyers for Good Government, alleges that Sessions should be disbarred for violating professional conduct standards in the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct. The allegations stem from Sessions’ testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Senate confirmation for US Attorney General.


The complaint states that Sessions behaved dishonestly and deceitfully when he testified that he “did not have communications with the Russians.”

Earlier this month, revelations surfaced that Sessions had contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States. The ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and Sessions met twice during the peak of the 2016 presidential race when Sessions was serving as a surrogate for then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

http://www.alreporter.com/2017/03/28/nearly-2000-lawyers-ask-sessions-disbarred/

March 29, 2017

Mothers fight to stop Bible class in public school

resurrects a troubled history with religion

(RNS) A dark chapter in our public schools’ tumultuous history with religion is repeating itself in Mercer County, W.Va.

A mother, who is an atheist, is fighting to stop her school system’s weekly, overtly religious Christian Bible classes so her child, a kindergartner, will not be ostracized for opting out when she will be required to take them next year in first grade.


I hope she wins. Legally, the federal civil suit the mother and the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation recently filed against Mercer County schools is clear-cut. It is unconstitutional to preach the Bible to students in school. Not only are these classes unconstitutional, they’re counterfactual; the Bible in the Schools course includes a lesson on creationism asking students to imagine that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, defying common sense and contradicting widely accepted scientific proof that this is untrue.

http://religionnews.com/2017/03/24/mothers-fight-to-stop-bible-class-in-public-school-resurrects-a-troubled-history-with-religion/

March 29, 2017

South Florida's Most Infamous Butt Doctor Was Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison

Oneal Ron Morris, the infamous South Florida quack known alternately as "the Fix-a-Flat doctor" and "the Duchess," was sentenced to a decade in prison on Monday for a butt-injection gone horribly wrong, as the Washington Post reports.

The fake doc was first arrested for allegedly practicing medicine without a license in 2011 and served a year in prison. But she later made her name nationally with the cringe-inducing details of her botched butt-surgeries––including the alleged use of chemicals such as tire fluid and bathroom caulking to enhance desperate women's posteriors.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/south-floridas-most-infamous-butt-doctor-was-sentenced-to-ten-years-in-prison

March 29, 2017

Coming to the Everglades soon? Indonesian man swallowed by python, villagers and reports say

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A 25-year-old Indonesian man has been swallowed whole by a python on the island of Sulawesi, villagers and news reports said.

A six-minute video on the website of the Tribun Timur publication shows villagers slicing open the python's carcass to reveal the legs and torso of the dead victim, named Akbar.

Junaedi, the secretary of Salubiro village in West Sulawesi province, told The Associated Press that villagers began searching for Akbar on Monday night after realizing he hadn't returned from working on his palm oil crops the previous day.

Junaedi said Wednesday that the search party found scattered palm oil fruit, a picking tool and a boot, and then spotted the engorged 7-meter (23-foot) -long reticulated python.

https://apnews.com/e429a9c39c414baf9513869d095312fc?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

March 29, 2017

Free Space Porn! in one place!

Have you ever needed a perfect photo of a nebula on which to Photoshop your cat? How about the ideal video of a rocket launch that can be sent as a GIF millions of times over?

Well, now NASA has you covered. The space agency just set up a searchable image and video library for every space-based need.

The best part: it's copyright free. You can download and use these images for whatever purpose you want, thanks to NASA's generous public images policy.

http://mashable.com/2017/03/28/nasa-space-photos-video-library/?utm_cid=mash-com-social-huffpo-partner

March 28, 2017

The Women Trolling the GOP with Bills That Restrict Viagra Use and Ejaculation

"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." This adage—popularized by Gloria Steinem, who heard it from an "old Irish woman taxi driver" in 1971—ignited as a feminist slogan because it pithily evoked the double standard that allowed for men's sexual and reproductive freedom, but not for women's.

Forty-six years later, the slogan remains as apt as ever. Decades of progress have not managed to deter politicians from passing a deluge of laws that restrict access to abortion in ways grounded neither in evidence nor reason, forcing hundreds of clinics to shut their doors. In state legislatures dominated by Republican men, where anti-choice extremism has become the norm, female lawmakers are reciprocating by turning the double standard back on their male colleagues. The most recent example is Texas Rep. Jessica Farrar, who joins a dozen fellow female lawmakers who have wielded satire to illuminate just how hypocritical, unjust, and ridiculous politically motivated abortion restrictions are.

On March 10, Farrar filed House Bill 4260, titled "A Man's Right To Know," which she described as "an act relating to the regulation of men's health and safety" that would create a civil penalty for "unregulated masturbatory emissions." The title of the bill mimics "A Woman's Right To Know," the notorious booklet that Texas clinics are required to foist on women at least 24 hours before an abortion procedure, which relays medically inaccurate gems such as the (erroneous) claim that abortion is associated with death, suicidal thoughts, and breast cancer. With this bill, Rep. Farrar aimed to highlight the "glaring inequities" in how politicians handle reproductive healthcare for men and women.


https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/the-women-trolling-the-gop-with-bills-that-restrict-viagra-use-and-ejaculation

March 28, 2017

Trump Theme Song for Today

Layers, Guns, and Money, the shit has hit the fan

I went home with a waitress the way I always do
How was I to know she was with the Russians, too?

I was gambling in Havana - I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns, and money
Dad, get me out of this

An innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck between a rock and a hard place
And I'm down on my luck
Yes, I'm down on my luck
Well, I'm down on my luck

I'm hiding in Honduras - I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns, and money
The shit has hit the fan

Send lawyers, guns, and money...

March 28, 2017

Trump blames everyone but himself

Perhaps in his forthcoming memoir, "The Art of the Schlemiel," President Donald Trump will explain why, since only he can fix things, the American Health Care Act, otherwise known as the Tumors Are Actually Quite Becoming Act, had the political lifespan of a mayfly.

Trump wasted no time doling out blame for the implosion of the Gushing Blood, What Gushing Blood? Act, as if it was mail call time at Parris Island.

The Republican House Freedom Caucus? Bad dudes. The Heritage Foundation? They're the ones you want. Democrats? You can never go wrong pointing the finger at those commie conspirators.

By the time dust settles, the president will also single out the Visiting Nurse Association, Alec Baldwin, former Vietnam prisoners of war, Pope Francis, Mexico, Rosie O'Donnell and the nuclear triad, whatever that is.

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/ruth-trump-blames-everyone-but-himself/2318091