Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
This post has been updated. There is a group of people who are convinced that they have seen a movie called “Shazaam,” starring the comedian Sinbad. In the film, Sinbad plays a genie, doing the sorts of things that genies do. It’s hard to say what exactly happens in the movie, because the movie doesn’t…
North Carolina is the one state where the law explicitly says you cannot revoke consent once it’s given. A bill that would remove this “unacceptable loophole” has little traction. Photo by Simone Becchetti via Stocksy One May evening in 1977, Beverly Hester was sexually assaulted. According to the summary included in the North Carolina Supreme…
This seems like it should be pretty self-explanatory. A society that accepts “[X] was following lawful orders” as a defense of overseeing and participating in the brutal torture of prisoners is saying, in very clear and unambiguous terms, that obedience to authority supersedes pretty much any other values a decent human being might be expected…
Photo: Getty Over the past few weeks, Donald Trump has been trying to spin the continual chaos around him—including the departure of top aides like Hope Hicks and Gary Cohn resigning—as an example of a calm White House that is merely “seeking perfection.” But on Tuesday, some bajillion things happened that show only what we’ve…
Photo: Getty Donald Trump has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and is nominating CIA director Mike Pompeo to replace him. The Washington Post was the first to report the news. Tillerson has often found himself publicly at odds with Trump when it came to major issues like North Korea, the decision to move America’s…
President Trump has ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and plans to nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him as the nation’s top diplomat, orchestrating a major change to his national security team amid delicate negotiations with North Korea, White House officials said Tuesday. Trump last Friday asked Tillerson to step aside, and the…
Oh hai, Batman. Last month, Variety reported that Hangover director Todd Phillips was in talks with Joaquin Phoenix to star in the stand-alone Joker origin film—a compelling choice to play the Batman villain who could probably give the character a depth we haven’t seen since Heath Ledger. But following Variety‘s announcement, another actor unexpectedly threw…
One officer involved in the city’s massive corruption scandal said officers kept the replicas “in case we accidentally hit somebody or got into a shootout, so we could plant them.” Last week, the beginning of an explosive corruption trial involving eight members of Baltimore’s elite Gun Trace Task Force revealed that a handful of Baltimore…
Image: NBC News President Donald Trump’s rambling, hour-long speech outside Pittsburgh today reserved special ire for Meet The Press host Chuck Todd, who was called a “sleeping son of a bitch.” The NBC News host was lambasted along with Oprah, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and several news channels, as Trump free-associated his way through a speech designed…
Credit Jennifer Heuer At one point during the 2016 presidential election campaign, I watched a bunch of videos of Donald Trump rallies on YouTube. I was writing an article about his appeal to his voter base and wanted to confirm a few quotations. Soon I noticed something peculiar. YouTube started to recommend and “autoplay” videos…