New Jersey gym owner Scott Fairlamb pleaded not guilty to 12 criminal counts including assaulting police and carrying a dangerous weapon into the Capitol. In this newly released video, he is seen pushing and striking a police officer during the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

From CNN:

In the new video, Scott Fairlamb, a gym owner from New Jersey, leans into the face of a police officer, following him, and taunting him with expletives. At one point, Fairlamb shouts, "you have no idea what the f**k you're doing." He then pushes and punches an officer.Fairlamb was one of the first rioters inside the Senate side of the building, according to court records, and is charged with 12 criminal counts including assaulting police and carrying a dangerous weapon into the Capitol.Prosecutors had sent the video of Fairlamb directly to a federal judge reviewing his case months ago, and CNN and 16 other media outlets went to court to seek its release.

According to The Markup, Amazon "bans nearly 2,000 items for sale in the United States that fall into 31 broader categories, ranging from skin care products to assault weapons to human organs." The site prepared a quiz to see how good you are at spotting items that should be banned. I took the quiz and failed miserably — I only got two out of six products right!

But Amazon's filters don't catch everything. An investigation by The Markup found nearly 100 banned products that slipped past Amazon.com's safeguards. When we sent our findings to Amazon, most of the listings were removed.

"If products that are against our policies are found on our site, we immediately remove the listing, take action on the bad actor, and further improve our systems," Amazon spokesperson Patrick Graham said.

The Markup's Annie Gilbertson found that Amazon workers who monitor listings have only a few minutes to investigate each one. We've put together a list of six items we found for sale on Amazon. Can you tell which ones shouldn't have been allowed, according to Amazon's rules?

Director Peter Jackson's long-awaited Beatles documentary will air in three two-hour episodes over Thanksgiving weekend on Disney+.

Jackson had plenty of material to work with. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr gave Jackson over 60 hours of never-before-seen video of the band rehearsing and performing. And Ars Technica says Apple Corps gave Jackson a treasure trove of audio from its vault:

Jackson stitched the footage together with access to what Disney calls "over 150 hours of unheard, restored audio"—meaning yes, somehow Apple Corps. still has some tapes in hiding after this many Beatles special edition albums, anthologies, video games, and Cirque du Soleil collaborations. For further context on the Let It Be recording sessions, the film will be paired with a physical book full of photos and original interviews, now delayed to an October launch.

A neurointensivist from the University of Texas at San Antonio says he was inspired by a McFlurry straw to create the HiccAway, a straw that he claims will relieve 9 out of 10 hiccup sufferers. The straw has a tiny hole on one end, which makes you have to suck extra hard to draw water through it. Dr. Ali Seifi told Insider that this extra effort fools the brain to "stop the vicious cycle between the phrenic nerve (controlling the diaphragm) and the vagus nerve (controlling the epiglottis). Users have to both contract their diaphragm (to suck) and close their epiglottis (to swallow). 'The diaphragm keeps being occupied by our intention of suctioning the water. Then, the brain forgets to keep spasming that diaphragm.'"

I wonder if you could just pinch the middle of a plastic straw? Next time I get the hiccups, I'll try that.

Frequent self-owner Tucker Carlson did it again. This time, he talked about how cowardly Simon & Schuster was for canceling books by Josh Hawley, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Candace Owens. He then told viewers to check out his new book being published by… you guessed it, Simon & Schuster.

Here's what he said:

In January, Simon & Schuster, the gargantuan publishing house canceled a book by a senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley, because a mob of democratic activists told them to. It wasn't the first time they've done something like this. They did the same thing to Milo Yiannopoulos. Several years before, they neglected to take a second book from best-selling author Candace Owens because they didn't like her politics. Simon & Schuster did that.

It's all in a new book that I have just written, coming out in August published by Simon and Schuster, which you might want to check out.

I've been teaching myself Blender for the last couple of months but I was interested in seeing what other 3D sculpting apps were out there, so this video by Make's Caleb Kraft about getting started in digital sculpting for 3D printing was interesting. I loved the weird frog he made!

Two perky teenagers ride the monorail to the 1962 Seattle World's Fairgrounds, enjoying the many exhibits there. If you are wondering why they seem to be inordinately interested in the Bell Telephone pavilion, it's because the film was made by Bell Telephone.

This 15-minute film was apparently featured on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, but I have never seen an episode of MST3K because I didn't like the robot silhouettes and commentary spoiling the movies.

"Does that look a little odd to you, or is it just me?" asks one of the anchors on this Australian news program. The two anchors can't keep a straight face while trying to report on the upcoming launch of Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezo's plainly phallic rocket.

Elvis Presley was said to have given his penis the nickname "Little Elvis." I wonder if Bezos calls his rocket "Big Jeff?"

A persistent drought in the American Southwest forced the Anasazi to abandon their settlements a thousand years ago. Eventually the precipitation returned. Hoover Dam in Nevada was built in 1931, "during an especially wet period for the West." But today Lake Mead, which powers Hoover Dam's generators, is at an all-time low. 

I wrote the above paragraph in 2015. Six years later, Lake Mead has even less water.

In 2009 I wrote an article for Good about the crisis:

Lake Mead stores water from the Colorado River. When full, it holds 9.3 trillion gallons, an amount equal to the water that flows through the Colorado River in two years. The water from Lake Mead is used for many things. It irrigates a million acres of crops in the United States and Mexico, and supplies water to tens of millions of people. Its mighty Hoover Dam generates enough electricity to power a half-million homes. Additionally, the power from Hoover Dam is used to carry water up and across the Sierra Nevada Mountains on its way to Southern California.In 2000, the water level at Lake Mead was 1,214 feet, close to its all-time high. It's been dropping ever since. When Lake Mead was built during the 1920s and 1930s, the western United States was enjoying one of the wettest periods of the past 1,200 years. Even today, our so-called drought is still wetter than the average precipitation for the area averaged over centuries. In other words, for the last 75 years, we've been partying like it's 1929. Farmers grow rice by flooding arid farmland with water from Lake Mead; residents of desert communities maintain front lawns of green grass; golfers demand courses in areas where the temperature exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer.

Today CNN reported that Lake Mead "registered its lowest level on record since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s." It's at 36 percent capacity, "a number that will continue to fall as the reservoir's rapid decline continues to outpace projections from just a few months earlier. Water levels are projected to drop another 20 feet by 2022."

Accuweather says low rainfall this year isn't helping:

The last measurable precipitation in the area of Lake Mead was on May 16, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Carl Erickson. However, that only amounted to 0.01 of an inch of rainfall. The last notable amount of rainfall goes back a few months.

"You have to go back to March 11 and March 12 when a little over a half of an inch of rain fell, 0.63 inches, over the course of those two days," Erickson said. "Total rainfall year to date, Jan. 1 to June 15, was 0.85 of an inch. Normal for that same time period is 2.04 inches." That the meager amount is only 42% of normal rainfall for the year so far.

Looking ahead, Erickson added, it's likely the area will remain dry through the rest of June and into early July. To date, there's been no measurable rainfall in June.

You might remember House seditionist Rep. Andrew Clyde (Q-GA), the congressman who bizarrely likened the January 6 riot on the Capitol to a "normal tourist visit" but was seen in a photo that day barricading the door with a piece of furniture and panicking with a look of terror on his face. Now Clyde is back in the news, this time because Michael Fanone, a D.C. police officer who was severely beaten and electroshocked by pro-Trump terrorists and suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury from the assault, said Clyde ignored him when he offered to shake his hand.

From HuffPost:

Fanone visited Capitol Hill Wednesday in an effort to speak with those lawmakers and educate them on what he and his colleagues experienced, he told CNN's Don Lemon.

He said he ran into Clyde while he was there and tried to introduce himself in an elevator.

"I was very cordial. I extended my hand to shake his hand. He just stared at me. I asked him if he was going to shake my hand and he told me that he didn't know who know I was," he said.

"So I introduced myself. I said that I was Officer Michael Fanone, that I was a D.C. Metropolitan police officer who fought on January 6th to defend the Capitol. And as a result, I suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as a heart attack after having been tased numerous times at the base of my skull, as well as being severely beaten."

At that point, Clyde turned away from him and pulled out his cellphone, Fanone said. He said Clyde did not acknowledge him at any point and then "as soon as the elevator doors opened, he ran as quickly as he could like a coward."

Clyde's cowardly behavior toward officer Fanone doesn't come as a surprise. He was branded a poltroon when he was recorded running away from a reporter who asked him to explain why he thought the riot was like a tourist visit:

Tucker Carlson has always been an unpleasantly weird person, but his increasingly frequent paranoid, cognitive misfirings suggest he's suffering from deeper issues. Now he's claiming the FBI orchestrated the deadly Capitol riot to make peace-loving Qnuts look bad.

Carlson is basing his wacky, pathetic theory on the false assumption that "unindicted co-conspirators in the Capitol riot indictments means those people are government agents," explains Aaron Blake in The Washington Post, "and that this, in turn, means the FBI was involved in organizing the riot."

Here's what Carlson said on his show:

But wait, here's the interesting thing: Person Two and Person Three were organizers of the riot. The government knows who they are, but the government has not charged them. Why is that?

You know why: They were almost certainly working for the FBI. So, FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to government documents.

And those two are not alone. In all, Revolver News reported there are, quote, "upwards of 20 unindicted co-conspirators in the Oath Keeper indictments, all playing various roles in the conspiracy who have not been charged for virtually the exact same activities, and in some cases, much, much more severe activities as those named alongside them in the indictments."

Huh? So it turns out that this "white supremacist" insurrection was, again by the government's own admission in these documents, organized at least in part by government agents.

Yesterday my daughter and I watched Nintendo's E3 announcement video. She was excited about:

• Super Monkey Ball remastered collection
• Mario Party collection
• Shin Megami Tensei V
• Danganronpa Decadence
• Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword HD
• Breath of the Wild Sequel

My list was shorter:

• Nintendo Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda
• Shin Megami Tensei V
• Breath of the Wild Sequel

I would have been excited about Danganronpa Decadence but I've already played all three games plus the Despair Girls spin-off. So has my daughter, but the Switch release includes an expanded version of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony's Ultimate Talent Development Plan board minigame.

The most anticipated news was for the Breath of the Wild Sequel. Nintendo played an intriguing teaser trailer which shows floating cities about Hyrule and a way for Link to move through solid stone. Nintendo said it will release the title in 2022. It's already available for preorder at Amazon with a listed release date of "12-31-2022" (I'm guessing it'll be late November).

Also available for pre-order is the retro-inspired Nintendo Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda with three classic games from the series, The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and a remake of the old Game & Watch title Vermin, which stars Link as the vermin squasher.

The smart QAnoners have already bought their $1200 tickets to "The 2nd Inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States." The tickets say the grand event is taking place on "August 15, 2021 in front of the Capitol steps," with "Special Musical Guest Stars: Ted Nugent and Kid Rock."

Sounds legit, but ABC News 10 seems to think there's something fishy about the whole thing:

According to the event website from the U.S. Capitol, there isn't an event scheduled on August 15. There are no events listed on the website or social media accounts for Donald Trump. 

On Ted Nugent's tour website, on August 15 the singer will be performing at the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda, New York. Kid Rock will be at Mt. Pleasant, Michigan's Soaring Eagle Casino on August 15.

Photos of the tickets were also shared across anonymous imageboard pages and semi-closed and pseudo-anonymous social networks. 

This video has almost everything: a man with a stick, an idiot driver, amused commentary, and an off-camera scream that would make Wilhelm blush. The only thing missing is an explanation as to what the fuck is going on.

"Made it with python, Arduino and a homemade proximity sensor. A literal life saver." That's what this clever tinkerer says of his handcrafted display-switching contraption.

It sounds useful. For instance, if you're watching a Harold Lloyd movie but are rightly reluctant for anyone to find out you enjoy such garbage, you can configure it to switch to a Buster Keaton film as soon as someone enters the room, preserving the illusion that you are a person of taste.

Comedian Caitlin Reilly has a funny new video. This time she's a super-fast talking, obnoxious multilevel marketing victim still in the true believer stage. She reminds me of a friend of a friend who tried to get me to become an Herbalife hawker many years ago.

Chris Notap made a short, straightforward video that shows you how to replace the washer in faucet. He also explains what to do if water is leaking from the stem of the faucet.

I've owned quite a few Bodum French Presses in my day. I would have been happy with just one, but I have a habit of dropping and breaking them. I've never owned the 8-cup version, though, and I'm tempted to get it, mainly because I like red colored plastic and it's on sale at Amazon right now.

A group of noisy merry-makers on two large boats was approached by two men on jet skis. The men asked the partiers to turn down the music. The partiers jeered at the jet skiers and one of the partiers began hurling beer bottles at them. The men in the jet skis retaliated by splashing the partiers with large waves, which surprised and chagrined the partiers. This video is satisfying because the bad people were punished by the good people.

Karl Rock is a New Zealander YouTuber who now lives in Delhi, India. He recently went to Pakistan and got his shoes shined by two different people. One guy charged him 20 cents (the going rate for locals) and the other guy charged him $2 (the going rate for a tourist who wants to haggle is $1). Both people did a great job cleaning Karl's shoes.

Shoes get dirty quickly while travelling in India and Pakistan, so I show you how to get your shoes cleaned by shoe shiners on the streets of Lahore. First, I'll show you one honest gentleman and then the average shoeshiner who will try to charge you as much as possible. Shoe shining costs around Rs. 30 in Pakistan, but as a foreigner, you'll probably pay Rs. 100 – Rs. 300 PKR after bargaining.