May 14, 2018

Trump called Roseanne Barr to congrat her on TV ratings but hasn't called the Waffle House Hero

Set aside special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the Stormy Daniels saga for a moment. Pretend, for a moment, there was never even a reason to have either. This nation would still be in serious peril with Donald J. Trump as our president. Why?

Because he is a man who calls Roseanne Barr to congratulate her on her TV ratings, but can't find a minute to call Waffle House hero James Shaw Jr. and simply say, "Our nation is grateful to you for your courage and act of heroism.”

That's the America he stands for. Be afraid; be very afraid.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/ct-donald-trump-roseanne-barr-james-shaw-20180511-story.html

May 13, 2018

Two new fissures opened on Hawaii's Big Island on Saturday, piling lava as high as a four-story buil

Two new fissures opened on Hawaii's Big Island on Saturday, piling lava as high as a four-story building
The 16th fissure is located in pasture land about a half-mile from the Puna Geothermal Venture plant
This week, plant workers removed 60,000 gallons of flammable liquids as a precaution, officials said
Another fissure, the 17th since the lava flows began May 3, opened about 6pm local time, venting gases
Video released on Saturday by the US Geological Survey shows footage of the Pu'u 'Ō'ō crater of Kīlauea
The crater's floor collapsed on April 30 after magma drained to the east along the east rift zone
More than 2,000 people have evacuated area, while 27 homes have been destroyed by Kilauea's eruption
President Donald Trump issued a presidential disaster declaration for Hawaii's Big Island Friday
Estimated cost to protect residents over the next 30 days is expected to exceed $2.9million, officials sai








As the area affected by Kilauea's eruption widens, Hawaii residents are racing to buy respirators to cope with the ash and toxic gases spewing from the volcano.

David Baxter, 54, an employee of Pahoa Auto Parts, said the shop was selling out of respirators as soon as they get in and had sold about 3,000 so far. The shop was all out on Saturday.

'We pretty much bought up every (respirator) in the state, and we are selling them at cost - actually, a slight loss,' said Baxter. 'We need to breathe.'

Even as the volcano continued to erupt, Hawaii Academy of Arts and Sciences, a charter middle and high school in Pahoa, will resume classes on Monday after being shut for a week.

A teacher at the school, Tiffany Edwards Hunts, who lives in the Big Island's Vacationland neighborhood, said she, her husband and two children - ages 10 and six- were readying to evacuate their home.

'My husband has been doing a good job of protecting them, but it is scary for kids,' she said.





Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5723679/Two-new-cracks-spewing-lava-Hawaiis-Big-Island.html#ixzz5FPL5HRh5
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May 13, 2018

Preacher's "If you were to die tonight" sermon in dark movie theater causes panic/ police response

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2018/04/christian-preacher-terrorizes-audience-at-avengers-screening/

A Christian preacher terrorized a movie audience by screaming about God and “a passage to heaven” during a screening of the new film “Avengers: Infinity War.”

According to multiple reports, Michael Webber, a 28-year-old preacher with Truth and Triumph Ministries, sent a movie audience into a panic after beginning to scream about God and heaven towards the end of the movie screening at the Harkins Mountain Grove 16 theater in Redlands, California, on Friday night.

CBS News reports:

Armed officers rushed to the Harkins Mountain Grove 16 theaters in Redlands, where people had just finished watching the latest installment of the “Avengers” franchise, fearing there might a gunman inside. Witnesses said when the movie was over, a man stood up and started yelling in what sounded like a preacher’s sermon.

Susie Arias told CBS News:

I think when he said, ‘If you were to die tonight, would your passage to heaven be guaranteed?’ — something along those lines — I think that’s when people started panicking.

Arias said that the preacher’s screaming sent audience members into a panic, with many people yelling and running for their lives, believing that Webber was a terrorist.

Commenting on the scene, witness Adrian Arias said:

That’s when the kind of chaos happened in the little exit, where people were jumping over the railings, and kind of falling over, twisting their ankles and hitting their head.

The Daily News reports at least two people were seriously injured trying to escape the deranged preacher’s out of control rant about death and dying.

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Michael Ray Webber, 28, got out of his seat at the end of the movie on Thursday
He threw his hands in the air and started preaching about God as others fled
One terrified woman jumped over the railings of a balcony and fell 20ft
She was trampled by others who desperately tried to escape as Webber spoke
It led to false police reports that '30 to 40' shots had been fired inside
Webber said he was confused by all the fuss and that he regularly preaches at the end of movies
The incident unfolded at 10pm at the Redlands Harkins Theater in San Bernardino, California

Webber was confused by the crowd's reaction and said he intentionally held his hands up to show that he was not armed.

He said he regularly preaches about God during film screenings and did not know why this time in particular caused panic, Mercury News reported.

He was arrested at the scene and police later checked his home to determine if he was a threat.

Webber was arrested for 'offensive language likely to cause a violent reaction'.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5669563/Preacher-sparks-mass-panic-movie-theater-end-Avengers-screening.html#ixzz5FPJYDyiu
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May 13, 2018

The Trump White House crossed a new threshold for political debasement this week

The White House probably thinks it cannot punish Kelly Sadler for her awful comment about John McCain because President Trump has also said nasty things about McCain. It may worry that showing her the door would set a troubling precedent for a president who may one day cross a very similar line.

Welcome to the ongoing degradation of our political discourse. Destination: No end in sight.

One mainstay of the Trump era is reporters are constantly wary of overselling the salience of the political moment. We have seen Trump cross so many established lines of acceptable political behavior and rhetoric, and the outrage cycle can feel futile and even perfunctory. Whether it is Trump's goal to bulldoze our political norms or not, it is happening with an almost unflinching steadiness.

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Sadler reportedly said of McCain's opposition to Gina Haspel's nomination to be CIA director, “It doesn't matter; he's dying anyway.” The White House's response Friday was not to distance itself from the comment about the brain cancer-stricken Arizona senator, but to no-comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sadler is still employed but declined to go any further. “I’m not going to validate a leak one way or another out of an internal staff meeting,” she said.

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Mostly, though, this all shows how unlikely the trend is to arrest itself any time soon. Either because the White House is afraid of setting a standard Trump cannot meet or because Trump is demanding it hold the line against the media's outrage cycle, it is serving notice there are more important things than Sadler's public accountability: things like confidentiality and politics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/05/12/the-trump-white-house-crossed-a-new-threshold-for-political-debasement-this-week/?utm_term=.92e27df7561b

May 12, 2018

the moment Oakland BBQ racists realizes no one is accepting her sh*t.

When Snider, who is white, confronts the women for racial profiling, she is told that charcoal grills are “illegal” in that part of the park, and threatens the Black family with jail.

The rest of the clip is a glorious example of what happens when a true ally is sick and tired of seeing another white person cry wolf. Snider proverbially sinks her teeth into this woman and goes in on this woman as she records their interactions for over twenty minutes.

“They’ve got other things to do other than sit here and listen to another white lady complain about black people in Lake Merritt Park,” Snider says. “This is a park for everybody.”

She mocks the woman as “the f***ing coal Nazi police,” and keeps the camera focused on her face as the woman blatantly lies and tells dispatchers the family is threatening her.

When Snider follows the white woman across the street to a convenience store, in a moment of true irony the woman begins to sob and screams “I’m being harassed,” when the truth is before another white person came onto the scene she was the one who had been harassing the Black family for hours.

https://thegrio.com/2018/05/11/video-showing-white-woman-harassing-black-family-in-a-park-shows-how-white-people-can-check-other-white-people-on-their-racism/

May 12, 2018

Miami cop beats, slaps his daughter at school. employees don't intervene. He has been charged

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5721399/Miami-cop-seen-beating-daughter-14-school-office.html

A police officer was seen beating up his 14-year-old daughter at her school
Raymond Rosario, 44, was called to the school because the girl was misbehaving
He was seen on camera slapping her in the face and whipping her with his belt
Two women were seen in the video, but neither one intervened in the fight
Rosario was charged with child abuse and was suspended from police with pay

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He is expected to sign a plea deal, and if he does not receive a criminal conviction, could possibly return to the force.

The girl's school issued a statement explaining one woman present was pregnant and too scared to intervene in the girl's beating, but the statement does not comment on the other woman seen in the clip.









Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5721399/Miami-cop-seen-beating-daughter-14-school-office.html#ixzz5FJmGOF6j

May 12, 2018

Hawaii: Trump approves disaster relief, conditions prime for major eruption

A home destroyed the recent lava flow is seen in the Leilani Estates subdivision near Pahoa, Hawaii on Friday

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5720519/Hawaii-struggles-disappearing-tourism-residents-prepare-big-one.html#ixzz5FGGN2IF1
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May 12, 2018

This Utah park's alarming problem: Visitors are throwing dinosaur tracks into the water

Josh Hansen, a state park manager in Utah, heard two distant thunks hit the water as he docked his patrol boat.

He quickly found the source: About 500 yards away, someone was throwing pieces of stone over a cliff and into the reservoir. Hansen sped his boat to the opposite shoreline, just in time to find a boy holding two toe imprints from a partial dinosaur track.

"I saved that one," Hansen told The Salt Lake Tribune last week. "He had already thrown multiple [tracks in the water]."

Opened to the public as a state park in 1988, the nearly 2,000-acre Red Fleet State Park is known for the dinosaur footprints, traces of the towering carnivorous dinosaurs that roamed what is now northeastern Utah about 200 million years ago. But over the past six months, visitors at the park have been dislodging tracks imprinted in the dusty red sandstone and hurling them into the nearby reservoir, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

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Under Utah Code, three-toed dinosaur footprints are treated as fossils, and those who try to destroy are subject to a felony charge. Charges haven't been filed recently, though. In 2001, three Boy Scouts were charged in juvenile court for engaging in the same problem Red Fleet State Park faces today: Tossing dinosaur footprints into its reservoir, the New York Times reported at the time.


Volunteer divers were able to recover about 90 percent of the dinosaur footprints they thought would be lost forever. Now, the park is discussing the possibility of sending a team of divers into the reservoir to do the same thing, Chavez said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/05/10/ancient-dinosaur-tracks-are-disappearing-at-a-national-park-in-utah-humans-are-to-blame/?utm_term=.1fec8632b6f7

"It's become quite a big problem,” Utah Division of State Parks spokesman Devan Chavez told The Salt Lake Tribune. “They're just looking to throw rocks off the side. What they don't realize is these rocks they're picking up, they're covered in dinosaur tracks."

Although some tracks are very distinct, “just as many are not,” Park Manager Josh Hansen told the parks blog.

http://www.newsweek.com/dinosaurs-red-fleet-state-park-utah-footprints-921474

May 11, 2018

Donald and Melania Trump's Marriage Is Most 'Awkward' Presidential Union in Modern Times: Historian

Prominent presidential historian Douglas Brinkley doesn’t think Donald and Melania Trump‘s marriage is “hinged right.”

“In modern times, we haven’t had such an awkward marriage — one that seems to be, if not unraveling, it seems to be frozen. It doesn’t seem to be a very organic thing,” Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and CNN’s presidential historian, tells PEOPLE.


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As devoted as Melania may be, the visuals of a happy home life are largely absent to the public.

“Usually, when there is a child in the White House, there is a feeling of joy and laughter,” Brinkley says, referencing the Kennedys and Obamas. “That isn’t emanating from the current first family.”

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“It’s almost painful to watch the president and first lady together — they seem uncomfortable in the same photo frame,” Brinkley says. “There’s not a lot of warmth that is being exuded.”

Most likely, the viral news stories about Trump’s womanizing “all gets through to the first lady,” Brinkley says. “She knows this is happening.”

http://people.com/politics/donald-melania-trump-marriage-most-awkward-says-historian/

May 11, 2018

The jogging humanoid robot video that is 'terrifying' the Internet

real dog vs robot dog