Back in 2018, evil got a shot in the arm when Nazi collaborators Bayer were allowed to buy Big Ag monopolists Monsanto, celebrating the marriage by getting rid of the Monsanto name (on the grounds that Monsanto's tactics had tarnished their reputation even worse than Bayer's use of concentration camp slaves and fatal medical experiments on Jews and others imprisoned by the Nazis, to say nothing of their notorious product Zyklon B). Read the rest

Olivia Jade Giannulli is the millionaire heiress of actor Lori Laughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, who are accused of paying a $500,000 bribe to the University of Southern California to secure her admission; Jade's university career was bound up with her other career as an "Instagram influencer," with sponsor deals for the decor in her dorm room and other collegiate trappings. Read the rest

Patagonia's iconic "power vest" is a favorite for co-branded company swag, but the company has quietly enacted a new policy that shuts out h oil, drilling, dam construction, etc. companies" as well as some "financial institutions" on the grounds that they are "environmentally damaging." Read the rest

If there was ever collective schadenfreude to be had, it was when we learned that a bunch of young, privileged rich kids got swindled by the promoters of the 2017 Fyre Festival and were left to fend for themselves on a remote island. On January 18, Netflix is releasing a documentary about the dumpster Fyre.

Here's its teaser trailer:

Get your exclusive first look at FYRE — a revealing new doc about the insanity and rapid unraveling of Fyre Festival: the greatest party that never happened. Premieres January 18. #NetflixNewsWeek pic.twitter.com/B4iaR3UJwM

— See What's Next (@seewhatsnext) December 10, 2018

Previously: Fyre Festival fraudster sentenced to six years in federal prison

(COS) Read the rest

Do you remember when Barney parade balloon ate it during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1997? The internet sure does. Footage of the schadenfraude-inducing incident is making the rounds again, proving that hating on the annoying purple dinosaur is timeless.

The day after it happened, The New York Times reported the accident was due to high winds and that Barney wasn't the only damaged float:

...For a while, the balloons seemed to be falling like flies. Barney suffered extensive damage and had to be removed at 51st Street. The Pink Panther succumbed at 42d Street. Quik Bunny and the Cat in the Hat limped away at 36th Street...

The crash of Barney, the purple dinosaur beloved by preschoolers and loathed by some parents, was heart-stopping for those at the end of its ropes. ''Everything turned purple,'' said Antonella Laggiano of Mamaroneck, N.Y.

''Barney attacked us,'' said a still-stunned Isabella Fasciano of Hoboken, N.J. After it fell, police officers rushed to puncture it with knives and relieve the danger.

Thanks, Andy! Read the rest

Messages leaked to Buzzfeed reveal the bizarre story of the "Tory First Battalion," a secret Twitter group formed to capitalise on the smear that the Labour party was anti-Semitic by coordinating and amplifying anti-Corbyn messages. Read the rest

It's hard to know what to make of the raid on Trump family lawyer/bagman/fixer Michael Cohen's office -- there's been plenty of news tick-tock on the subject and legal experts agree that something momentous is going on, but what, exactly, does it all mean. Read the rest

The London offices of soi-dissant Facebook mind-control sorcerers Cambridge Analytica were raided by the UK Information Commissioner's Office, after a judge issued a search warrant for material related to the illegal acquisition of 50,000,000 Facebook profiles by the company. Read the rest

Pharmadouchebro/Larval Trump Martin Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud in August and then sent to jail in September for putting a bounty on a lock of Hillary Clinton's hair. Read the rest

Rightscorp (previously) is the extortion outfit that terrifies people into paying it money for unproven accusations of copyright violations, enlisting ISPs to cut off subscribers who won't cough up. Read the rest

McDonald's accidentally tweeted this late Thursday night:

While the internet was having a field day deciding if the tweet was intentional or not, McDonald's copped up to the boo-boo with this tweet nine hours later:

When you tweet before your first cup of McCafé… Nothing comes before coffee. pic.twitter.com/aPJ2ZupS9b

— McDonald's (@McDonaldsCorp) November 24, 2017

(Mashable)

photo by Rusty Blazenhoff Read the rest

A gas station didn't heed the attendant's request to put out his cigarette, so the attendant doused him and his car with a powder-based extinguisher.

Sorry for the potato camera quality of the video. For a clearer look at the smoking customer, here's a portrait of him by Robert Crumb. Read the rest

This year's Hugo Award winners have been announced, and the prizes overwhelmingly went to brilliant women like NK Jemisin and Seanan McGuire, to the eminent satisfaction of all those who saw the right-wing, misogynist, racist campaign to make science fiction inhospitable to brown people and women, took countermeasures, and for two years in a row, demonstrated the field's inclusiveness and commitment to quality, rather than pandering to reactionary panic over the prospect of a future that breaks with the shameful past. Read the rest

The YouTube channel Nerdwriter1 digs into the phenomenon of schadenfreude (“the pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune”) and what it can tell us about human psychology and the rise of Donald Trump. Read the rest

When United CEO Oscar Munoz lied about Dr David Dao, slandering the passenger that was beaten unconscious as a direct result of his employees enacting the policies he put in place, he was acting in the knowledge that he would shortly be elevated to the Chairmanship of United's board of directors. Read the rest

In 2012, Google rolled out Certificate Transparency, a clever system to spot corrupt "Certificate Authorities," the entities who hand out the cryptographic certificates that secure the web. If Certificate Authorities fail to do their jobs, they put the entire electronic realm in danger -- bad certificates could allow anything from eavesdropping on financial transactions to spoofing industrial control systems into accepting malicious software updates. Read the rest

Trump went full berzerker last night after a judge in Hawaii shut down his new Muslim ban before it could go into effect, but he's only got himself to blame. Read the rest