🐱 Interesting clickbait, op-eds, fluff pieces and other smaller stories

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/24/caitlyn-jenner-halloween-costume-sparks-social-media-outrage-.html

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...een-costume-labeled-817515?utm_source=twitter

It's nowhere near October, but one ensemble is already on track to be named the most controversial Halloween costume of 2015.

Social media users were out in full force on Monday criticizing several Halloween retailers for offering a Caitlyn Jenner costume reminiscent of the former-athlete's Vanity Fair cover earlier this year.

While Jenner's supporters condemned the costume as "transphobic" and "disgusting" on Twitter, Spirit Halloween, a retailer that carries the costume, defended the getup.

"At Spirit Halloween, we create a wide range of costumes that are often based upon celebrities, public figures, heroes and superheroes," said Lisa Barr, senior director of marking at Spirit Halloween. "We feel that Caitlyn Jenner is all of the above and that she should be celebrated. The Caitlyn Jenner costume reflects just that."

 

[TungstenCarbide]

So...this happened in Naples last week. An old lady goes to a tobacco shop and buys two scratch cards. One of them is worth half a million euros. She asks the shopkeeper to confirm the win, and he confirms. Then he calls his boss because he doesn't know how to help the lady to cash the money. His boss arrives, looks at the card, snatches it and fucks off on his motorcycle. The police arrests him a few days later while he tried to board a fly to the Canary Islands.

He insists that the card is his, the old lady is a scammer, and that he had just asked her to check the win for him, so he wants to sue her. A couple of days later the police watches the shop security camera footage and sees that the whole conodrum went just like the lady described. The fucker also tried to extort her money before the arrest, asking her half of the sum in exchange of the card, during a phone call that her nephew had the good sense to record. You can read the whole saga in English at the following links:

One
Two
Three

 

[Penis Drager]

Don't those scratchers have instructions on the back for how to cash in large wins like that? Like, you just write the relevant information down and mail it?

 

[Random Internet Person]

Canada Aims To Cancel Capital Letters

Just when you thought that the world couldn't get any more bizarre comes the news that Canada may be canceling capital letters. No, really. As Fox News

www.outkick.com

How woke can you go?

Just when you thought that the world couldn’t get any more bizarre comes the news that Canada may be canceling capital letters.

No, really.

As Fox News relayed, “dr. linda manyguns, associate vice-president of Indigenization and decolonization at Mount Royal University, said she was joining local leaders to reject symbols of hierarchy ‘wherever they are found,’ and will not use capital letters ‘except to acknowledge the Indigenous struggle for recognition.'”

Manyguns wrote this insanity on the Mont Royal website.

“We resist acknowledging the power structures that oppress and join the movement that does not capitalize,” she wrote.

Yeah, OK. This is just dumb with a capital “D.” But Manyguns is sticking to her guns.

Her latest proclamation followed her assertion “that to go forward as a country that respects Indigenous culture, Canada must go backward to revisit the rotten roots of colonization,” Fox News wrote.

Sadly, she isn’t alone in this type of weird overthinking of things. There is an entire Canadian movement that is against capitalizing letters.

These people want to fix the world, and there is nothing wrong with that. But capital letters are hardly part of the problem. It’s just another example of groups of individuals putting their efforts toward things that will make zero impact other than to irritate normal folks.

That’s not making a difference. That’s being S-T-U-P-I-D.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Speaking of Canada

 

[TungstenCarbide]

Don't those scratchers have instructions on the back for how to cash in large wins like that? Like, you just write the relevant information down and mail it?

Yes, they have the instructions, so the shopkeeper was retarded or he was too overwhelmed to think clearly. Or maybe his boss instructed him to call everytime a client found a scratch card with a big win.

 

[osooolemiiio]

Well, if there's already a heap of Blue's Clues and Owl House threads here, I'll throw this one in.

The Book I Never Wrote: The Secret Origins of ToughPigs

There are simply too many queer people who love the Muppets; there must be something here that appeals to us, and it’s not a regressive fantasy of self-extermination. This argument rests on one essential truth: To love something that despises you is soul-killing. This project seeks to look closely at what I find in the Muppets — to try to put my finger on that elusive queer appeal — and to inspire other queer Muppet fans to look at how they find themselves and their stories reflected in the Muppets.

As had been told two years ago by another Kiwi: "If you're reading sexuality into Muppets you really should re-consider your life".
(upd: and I'm getting the man-who-raped-the-elmo-doll vibes from this one.)

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

What could this mean for Germany?

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

Not enough content for a full thread but I'm pretty excited: the old black-and-white footage of the last Thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) known to exist has been recolorized based on paintings and what pelts still exist.

Heartbreaking Footage of The Last Known Thylacine Has Now Been Released in Color

Nearly a century ago, a filmmaker captured a short black-and-white movie of the last known thylacine, also known as a Tasmanian tiger, as it padded around its enclosure at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Australia.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[WonderWino]

KFC Isn’t Advertising Chicken Tenders Because of Supply Crunch

(Bloomberg) -- Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks trade and supply chains disrupted by the pandemic. Sign up here.Fried-chicken chain KFC would like to advertise its breaded tenders on television but is opting not to because there’s still not enough chicken, especially of the...

ca.finance.yahoo.com

Looks like theres a literal shortage of tendies. The autists will not be pleased

 

[AnOminous]

KFC Isn’t Advertising Chicken Tenders Because of Supply Crunch

(Bloomberg) -- Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks trade and supply chains disrupted by the pandemic. Sign up here.Fried-chicken chain KFC would like to advertise its breaded tenders on television but is opting not to because there’s still not enough chicken, especially of the...

ca.finance.yahoo.com

Looks like theres a literal shortage of tendies. The autists will not be pleased

Maybe they should offer them tendies if they get the jab.

 

[decaydent]

What could this mean for Germany?

Tbh probably not much. The SocDems aren‘t that lefty, their candidate Scholz is not from the left wing of the party, but the Greens might push for dumb legislation again. And it‘s not the left landslide they‘re making it out to be. Business as usual, they might finally finish their destruction of unemployment benefits.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

The ‘plagiarism hunter’ terrorising the German-speaking world
>> Denise Hruby, The New York Times

Published: 11 Sep 2021 01:47 PM BdST Updated: 11 Sep 2021 01:47 PM BdST

They call him “the plagiarism hunter.” He calls himself “meticulous” and an “addict.”

However he is characterised, in German-speaking countries where titles are important signals of social standing, Stefan Weber is the undisputed terror of academics, politicians, celebrities and a panoply of other potential culprits.

Weber, an Austrian communications professor, has ended the careers of several people and made life difficult for many others. And what started as a hobby has now developed into a business with five freelance “collaborators,” as he calls them, working with him to reveal the misdoings of lazy, sloppy or downright sneaky writers.

His latest target: Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party candidate to replace Angela Merkel as German chancellor in elections this month.

Weber, 51, got started on what would become his life’s work in 2005, when he himself was plagiarised by a German theologian, Joachim Fels, who explained that his failure to acknowledge Weber’s work properly in his doctoral dissertation was the result of an editorial mishap. He seemed to think that would settle the matter, but he did not fully appreciate whom he was dealing with.

Weber’s public complaint ultimately triggered a university investigation revealing that 86 percent of the first 100 pages of Fels’ dissertation was plagiarised from Weber’s work. The fraud was covered prominently in major news media outlets; trailed by a German TV crew, Weber even door-stepped a perplexed Fels, who was ultimately stripped of his doctorate.

In the intervening years, armed only with commercial software and a nearly photographic memory, Weber has gone after a variety of prominent figures, including, most recently, Baerbock.

Following allegations that she embellished her CV, Weber ran her newly published book, “Now: How We Renew Our Country,” through Turnitin and other plagiarism-detection programs. It marked at least 12 passages as almost identical to other sources.

“Willful deceit,” said Weber, who once worked as a tabloid journalist and who publicised his findings in his blog and through numerous interviews with major news organisations in Germany and Austria.

As the issue played out in front-page articles, experts cautioned against applying standards for doctoral dissertations to a short nonfiction book by a politician. Many saw a concerted campaign to discredit a highly accomplished woman, while others wondered if the far-right had bankrolled Weber’s research. (He said it did not.)

Still, the episode strengthened a sense of Baerbock as “dubious and sloppy,” Weber said. The number of passages in the book found to be cribbed from blogs, news columns, books and the Greens’ election program has since grown to more than 100. She led the polls in the spring, and her support has since dropped to less than 20 percent, though the plagiarism scandal is not the only factor.

Critics describe him as a pernickety crusader who takes pleasure in character assassination. Even his supporters acknowledge that his drive to hold writers, academics and others to the highest standards can be vexing.

“He always wants to be the best, and he also demands that of others,” said Peter A. Bruck, a former professor at the University of Salzburg who was an academic mentor to Weber.

Invariably, those who fall short of his expectations will hear about it. When he discovered that his children’s after-school centre had plagiarised its “pedagogical concept,” he promptly chastised school officials.

“I know when I’m annoying people with my meticulousness,” Weber said over lunch at an Italian restaurant near his office in a scruffy industrial district on the outskirts of Salzburg, Austria. When he is not fasting to stave off the diabetes his doctor predicted a decade ago, he typically enjoys pizza alla diavola, though on this occasion he settled down to a pasta dish while explaining the business side of things.

That consists of investigating academics’ publications, court experts’ opinions and books, for which he bills as much as $400 an hour. But the bulk of his clients typically fall into two categories: men seeking to discredit their ex-wives amid or after a divorce (but never vice versa) and people trying to undermine their neighbours’ credibility in nasty disputes over property lines.

He said he now receives about 50 inquiries a month and that people have begun sending him tips on big cases like the one he mounted against Christine Aschbacher, the Austrian labour minister who stepped down in January after a plagiarism scandal.

“It’s a gold mine,” he said of Austrians’ schadenfreude.

Weber took an odd life route to his current station. Born in Salzburg to a strict and controlling office clerk father who checked his school bag each evening and a mother who worked as a homemaker, young Stefan Weber showed early signs of being a math prodigy.

“May you remain humble in triumph,” a teacher cautioned the 11-year-old Weber. He excelled in most subjects, with physical education being the clear exception. Even these days, when his current partner, Birgit Kolb, hikes in the Alps, Weber opts for the cable car for the climb to the top.

As a student at the University of Salzburg, Weber realised that the triumph his teacher had foreseen long ago was not going to be found in math. Despite his prodigious memory, he was unable to follow the university math professors and instead turned to “the idiot degree everyone studies: communications.”

Communications was a breeze, and Weber went on to teach at eight universities of applied sciences in Austria and Germany, always vying for tenure. He never attained it.

“Colleagues described him as ‘socially incompatible,’” said Thomas Bauer, a retired communications professor from the University of Vienna who supported Weber’s path to tenure. Embroiled in a dispute with a tenured professor and the university’s librarian, he spent his 32nd birthday penning a three-page “letter of protest” to the Austrian Society of Communication.

He also ran afoul of his students, who pushed back indignantly when he accused them of plagiarism in their essays. Out of frustration, he quit two classes, forcing the university to find another instructor to finish the term.

At 37, Weber moved to Dresden, Germany, where his partner at the time worked as a civil servant. While helping to care for their two children, Maximilian and Anna, he taught at universities and worked as a communications consultant.

He also published books critiquing new media and continued to work with Bruck, who still lauds Weber’s intellect and ambition but has little patience for his new career. “From a useful tracker, he transformed into an illegitimate detractor,” he wrote in a 2007 op-ed rebuking Weber for accusing Johannes Hahn, then Austria’s science minister, of plagiarism. (Hahn was eventually cleared of the accusation.)

In 2014 Weber returned to Salzburg, splitting with his former partner the following year.

Today, he shaves his head before the children, now 10 and 13 years old, arrive for their summer holidays. Responsible parenting leaves him no time to wash his hair, he said, even less so now that he has a baby girl with Kolb.

Most of those he has named and shamed have neither lost their titles nor jobs, Weber said, pointing to Hahn, who went on to become a European Union commissioner. This year, however, when he exposed “plagiarism, wrong citations and poor knowledge of German” in the academic work of Aschbacher, she stepped down within two days.

For more than a decade, Weber promoted plagiarism as a discipline worthy of publicly funded research, but it was only with the Aschbacher case that the government began to take notice. “Only since politics has been hit,” he said, “has politics become interested.”

Now, with government funding, he is evaluating how Austria’s universities deploy plagiarism-detection software and is creating a Wiki that is to become the ultimate guide to proper sourcing, quoting and referencing. Eventually, he said, he wants to raise standards so high that he puts himself out of work.

But for now, he needs to scan and digitise the dissertations of two high-ranking civil servants. Weber picked up the bound volumes from the passenger-side floor of his navy blue Volkswagen and noted that they were written in the aughts, a time when plagiarism flourished.

“That’s already making me suspicious,” he said with a mischievous grin.

 

[neverendingmidi]

Invariably, those who fall short of his expectations will hear about it. When he discovered that his children’s after-school centre had plagiarised its “pedagogical concept,” he promptly chastised school officials.

On one hand plagiarism is a problem in academics, on the other hand this autist sounds like he would screech if you used a common allegory in your writing.

I mean look at that quote. Teaching concepts spread throughout any type of educational system (for good or bad-mostly bad) and they all claim to make children geniuses. And while I fully expect this new chancellor to fuck things up, whining that she’s reusing statements from her own party in her own writing seems pretty dumb.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

On one hand plagiarism is a problem in academics, on the other hand this autist sounds like he would screech if you used a common allegory in your writing.

I mean look at that quote. Teaching concepts spread throughout any type of educational system (for good or bad-mostly bad) and they all claim to make children geniuses. And while I fully expect this new chancellor to fuck things up, whining that she’s reusing statements from her own party in her own writing seems pretty dumb.

This is an anti-German sentiment sir.

Besides, it's true that things spread. But even teachers should know to give credit, no?

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

What is India gonna do about it?

 

[DoomsdayElite]

AOC reminding us all of what a stupid cunt she is.

AOC wears ‘Tax the Rich’ dress to Met Gala

That’s rich! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – who is the face of the Democratic Socialists of America- showed up to the Met Gala wearing a political message.

nypost.com

 

[TheRedChair]

I'll put this here

Vice Media Union to Top Execs: Severance Terms for Laid Off Staffers Are “Unconscionable”

"It's really painful to see how the company has handled it this time," a former member of the Vice union tells THR.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

My take? What do you expect from WOKE media... OH!... I learned something new today. The New Fascist Term is spreading across the nation that took the place of "Learn to Code" is....

"Pivot To Video".... Yup the new term for those Urnialists that are losing their jobs to video personalities.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

At least 291 migratory birds dead after smacking into WTC towers

At least 291 birds dead after smacking into WTC towers

archived 15 Sep 2021 23:09:56 UTC

archive.md

New York City’s dead bird problem has reached new heights.


Hundreds of migratory birds fatally crashed into World Trade Center towers earlier this week — leaving a graveyard of winged carcasses on the sidewalks below, sources said Wednesday.


At least 291 songbirds — including black-and-white warblers, American redstarts and ovenbirds — became disoriented by lights and reflective glass while flying south on Monday night or Tuesday morning, said Melissa Breyer, a volunteer bird collision monitor for bird conservation group New York City Audubon.


Breyer, who typically finds 15 or 20 feathered corpses per trip, was stunned to discover 300 at the bases of One, Three, Four and Seven World Trade Centers Tuesday morning.


“I was totally shocked. It was an overwhelming thing,” she told The Post. “I looked around and it was like a nightmare.”


Breyer snapped a photo of the carnage, which occurred during a heavy migration period and a mild storm, and posted the heartbreaking images on Twitter.


“Counting the dead birds on @_WTCOfficial awnings that I couldn’t collect; add another 35, + the 30 who went to @wildbirdfundmaking my documented total 291,” she tweeted. “That number excludes the swept & smashed ones.”


“Lights can be turned off, windows can be treated. Please do something,” she pleaded.

[IMG alt="The American Bird Conservancy installed bird protection decals on Liberty park’s glass railings to halt bird collisions.
"]https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/09/Birds.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024[/IMG]The American Bird Conservancy installed bird protection decals on Liberty park’s glass railings to halt bird collisions. PANYNJ
She and other wildlife advocates want WTC operators to turn off lights at night or install decals to help keep the city’s feathered friends alive.


“They can reduce night time lighting to help reduce light cause collision,” said Kaitlyn Parkins, associate director of conservation and science at NYC Audubon.“Or you can treat reflective glass so it looks solid to birds.”


The feathered fatalities come after dozens of songbirds crashed into a see-through barrier nearby in Manhattan’s Liberty Park last spring, prompting the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to install bird-friendly decals on the glass.

see also​

Birds fatally crashing into glass railing at World Trade Center’s Liberty Park ​

The bird deaths this week were not likely linked to the buildings’ Sept. 11 memorial light displays over the weekend — but rather a “a big pulse in migration” on Monday, Parkins said.


A rep for Four, Three and Seven World Trade Center said operators are taking steps to protect winged wildlife.


“We care deeply for wild birds and protecting their habitat in the five boroughs. Understanding that artificial night-time lighting in general can attract and disorient migrating birds, we are actively encouraging our office tenants to turn off their lights at night and lower their blinds wherever possible, especially during the migratory season,” said a spokeswoman for Silverstein Properties, which runs the towers.


Other WTC tower operators said they’d already installed special glass to keep birds from dying.


“The first 200 feet of One WTC are encased in glass fins that are non-reflective. This design was chosen because it greatly reduces bird strikes which mostly occur below 200 feet and are frequently caused by reflective glass,” said Jordan Barowitz, spokesman for One WTC, where less than 30 of the birds were found.

edit: so some mod doesn't yell at me for double posting, in between bites of his hot pocket. Even though it is something like two hours later.

I'll put this here

Vice Media Union to Top Execs: Severance Terms for Laid Off Staffers Are “Unconscionable”

"It's really painful to see how the company has handled it this time," a former member of the Vice union tells THR.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

My take? What do you expect from WOKE media... OH!... I learned something new today. The New Fascist Term is spreading across the nation that took the place of "Learn to Code" is....

"Pivot To Video".... Yup the new term for those Urnialists that are losing their jobs to video personalities.

Normally I hate seeing anyone getting laid off, and my heart goes out to them. Normally. But for Vice Media I'll make an exception.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

I'll put this here

Vice Media Union to Top Execs: Severance Terms for Laid Off Staffers Are “Unconscionable”

"It's really painful to see how the company has handled it this time," a former member of the Vice union tells THR.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

My take? What do you expect from WOKE media... OH!... I learned something new today. The New Fascist Term is spreading across the nation that took the place of "Learn to Code" is....

"Pivot To Video".... Yup the new term for those Urnialists that are losing their jobs to video personalities.

Normally I hate seeing anyone getting laid off, and my heart goes out to them. Normally. But for Vice Media I'll make an exception.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Twitter almost pulled a Donald Trump on Nicki Minaj and threatened to delete her account, only because she questioned the accuracy of what the COVID vaccine will do to your body

Twitter LOCKS OUT Nicki Minaj after Trinidad govt denies vaccine links to ‘swollen testicles’ LIVE ON TV

Rapper Nicki Minaj says she ended up in “Twitter jail” after starting an internet argument about vaccination allegedly causing testicle swelling in Trinidad – a claim the local government has taken live on air to refute.

www.rt.com

Here’s part of the article if you’re interested in reading it in full:

Minaj first triggered outrage among ardently pro-vaccine celebrities on Monday, when she claimed that her “cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent,” suffering “swollen”testicles and having his fiancee call off their wedding as a result.

Whether the story is true or not, and whether the unfortunate Trinidadian has ever reported his unfortunate side effect, it may now remain an unsolved mystery that only those with the most intimate knowledge of the rapper’s cousin’s friend know the truth about.

Minaj’s tweet has since been criticized by Twitter commenters, celebrities, and even the British government. The rapper has dug her heels in, however, accusing journalists of misquoting her, TV hosts of attacking her out of racism, and mocking British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chief Medical Officer Peter Whitty, the latter of whom said Minaj should be “ashamed” of sharing such vaccine “misinformation.”