Jakiw Palij is a convicted Nazi war-criminal who helped train the force charged with murdering every Jew in Poland, guarded the Trawniki forced labor camp -- where 6,000 prisoners were murdered in a single day -- and was present at the "liquidation" of the Warsaw Ghetto. He's lived in the USA since 1949, when he entered the country and lied about his Nazi past. Read the rest
Public records requests have shown that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- who have continued and intensified Obama's program of mass deportations and separation of families under Trump -- uses Facebook's logs, merged with logs from cellular carriers and analyzed by software from Palantir (Peter Thiel's police-state arms-dealer) to track immigrants people they're investigating. Read the rest
It's a silent video, but for a few chuckles from the camera operator. I recommend Maurice Ravel's Bolero as a soundtrack: Read the rest
Traveling by air is thirsty work.
Deep in the Jostedalen glacier in Norway, musician Terje Isungset puts on an annual concert played on instruments made of ice. It just completed its 2018 run, though they had to move further north this year to an icy lake due to warming temperatures. Read the rest
Trump's election promise to be cruel to brown people manifested most tangibly as a campaign to deport "undocumented criminals" -- but there aren't many of those (migrants are more law-abiding, on average, than native-born Americans), so now ICE is scrambling for other brown people to be cruel to. Read the rest
The men and women of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) never seem to miss a chance to make themselves look like a shower of bastards. They've gone after a 10-year-old girl as she came out of surgery, separated children from their parents, and have created an environment where calling on the police for help can be a terrifying experience for undocumented immigrants.
One could argue that these things all happen as a result of current American legislation, morality be damned. ICE agents are doing exactly what they were empowered to do. As so much of what ICE does makes many people want to take a bath after reading about it, it's heartening to find that not all of the bullshit ICE employees pull is hunky dory under the rule of law. According to the Washington Post, a lawyer in the employ of ICE has been charged with stealing the identities of seven people under investigation by ICE, using their credentials for financial gain.
Charged with one count of aggravated identity theft and identity fraud, Raphael A. Sanchez, ICE’s chief legal counsel in Seattle, is up Shit Creek with nary a paddle in sight. According to the charging documents filed against Sanchez, the lawyer allegedly attempted to defraud several financial institutions using the identity information of individuals under investigation by ICE between October 2016- October 2017. There's not a lot of information out there on the extent of Sanchez's alleged crimes, yet. But we could learn more about what he was getting up to soon, as a plea hearing for his case is scheduled for later this week. Read the rest
Michelle McNew: "My crazy kid jumping on his buddy’s ice covered trampoline"
Henrik Trygg: "This is how 45mm new black ice sounds like. Don't forget to put on the sound. Recorded on Lissma Kvarnsjö outside Stockholm the 5th of December." (Previously)
It's beautiful and a little bit scary. See (below) a cool NPS video about the weird sounds that ice make. The same phenomenon, acoustic dispersion, is often heard in wind-whipped metal cables. It's the foley artist's secret sauce for making laser-gun sound effects that don't register as synthesized.
Gregory Kaczor had a lifelong dream to skate across Lake Baikul, and he made this lovely documentary of his travels. It's cool how he uses chunks of ice to secure the tent, and the clarity of the ice and water below is something to behold. Read the rest
Thomas Homan is the acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency; in an interview on (where else) Fox News, he said that local officials in "sanctuary cities" (cities where law enforcement agencies do not pro-actively check immigration status of people they question or arrest, and require immigration officials to present warrants along with requests to detain people) should be held criminally liable for "harboring and smuggling" unauthorized immigrants. Read the rest
Over the years, he's become quite the collector and inventor. All his "transformations" are really impressive. In fact, in 2016, he became a Guinness World Record holder for "World's Largest Rubik's Cube."
Well, now he has fashioned a fully-functional Rubik's Cube out of ice.
This is my Rubik's Cube made from 95% ice and it is fully functional. All 8 corners and 12 edges are solid ice. The 6 centres are 50% ice and the core is plastic. The screws and springs are regular metal ones. The puzzle shown is a first attempt and works surprising well. I am thinking about making others with full ice centres and also fully coloured ones.This video doesn't show how he made it and you'll see that the video footage is reversed in the beginning, making the melting ice seemingly "build" the toy. He does, however, write that he'll be posting the construction video soon. (Daily Mail)
Previously: WATCH: World record smallest 7x7x7 Rubik's Cube Read the rest
ICE have become house-flippers, using the notorious and discredited "civil asset forfeiture" process to steal houses from people they say were involved in crime, then selling the houses to fund their operations, and more seizures of more houses. Read the rest
As NASA continues to examine the treasure trove of data from the New Horizons project, one interesting phenomenon at Pluto's equator has been identified as massive ice blades made of methane. Read the rest
Trump is an infamously domineering handshaker, who uses the gesture to impose and humiliate. Sometimes, a wily Trudeau or muscular Macron will get the better of him, but they're still playing his game.
Agata Kornhauser-Duda isn't, drifting right past his outstretched l'il smokies to greet Melania Trump instead, only turning to the orange morgellons monster once she had dealt with its much better half.
Read the restThis swerve by Poland's first lady is smooth af pic.twitter.com/EiyiaXVG61
— Marv (@marv_vien) July 6, 2017
Johanna Nordblad holds the world record for free diving under ice. This gorgeous film captures the beauty and danger. She can stay under for more than 6.5 minutes with no gear of any kind. Read the rest
Lake Silvaplana has breathtaking views year-round, but in the winter there's another delightful experience to be had: walking on transparent ice that allows visitors to see all the way to the lakebed. Read the rest
