Jessie

"A 34-year-old Myrtle Beach woman has been charged with attempted murder and unlawful neglect of a child after allegedly trying to hit a man with a car during an argument over a cinnamon bun, while a teenager was in the passenger seat, according to a police report." - Jessie

A cinnamon bun is below my car rampaging threshold. Perhaps a large piece of apple pie with an even larger scoop of vanilla ice cream would do it. - Todd Hoff

"Hello Kitty fans, are you sitting down? Because this news is major. There's already a Hello Kitty-themed coffee shop in Seoul, South Korea, and the US will finally get its own this Summer. The lucky location: Orange County, CA, according to LAist, which got the scoop while touring the new Hello Kitty Cafe mobile truck at the first ever Hello Kitty Con. There, Hello Kitty Cafe's managing partner Allan Tea said that everything from the food to the decor will star the famous Sanrio character." - Jessie

smh - Anne Bouey

"'Stretching, reaching for coffee.’ November 17" - Jessie

"A jury today found a Michigan woman guilty of firing a shot into a McDonald’s drive-thru window after employees failed to put bacon on a cheeseburger she ordered." - Jessie

BACON KILLS - Stephen Mack

"People locked up in the Denton County Jail used to be allowed to see visitors two days per week. But when a company called Securus Technologies began offering a service for expensive virtual "visits" with jail inmates, things went down the way they usually do when Securus takes over. On January 31, the Denton County Sheriff's Office quietly eliminated all in-person visits at its jails, replacing them with Securus' video chats. On Wednesday, attorneys from a Denton law firm announced they were filing a class action lawsuit against Securus. The video company, which is based in Dallas, is targeted in the suit because of the way it writes its contracts with counties signing up for video visitation. Securus' contracts typically have a clause saying that the county must get rid of in-person visits. The lawsuit argues that this stipulation gives Securus a monopoly on jail visitation, in violation of federal law. "The use of anti-competitive contractual tactics by Securus, in an attempt to profit off the backs of inmates and their families, many of whom are indigent and have yet to be convicted of any criminal activity, is unconscionable and cannot be tolerated," said attorney J. Edward Niehaus in a statement." - Jessie

"Securus is also launching video visitation in Dallas County. Before county commissioners could approve a contract last year that would have mandated Dallas also get rid of in-person visits, County Judge Clay Jenkins and prisoner rights' advocates pushed hard to preserve in-person visitation. In response, the Dallas County approved a revised contract with Securus and promised verbally, though not in writing, that in-person visits would remain. Jenkins voted against the deal because he's worried it would still give Securus and the county wiggle room to end face-to-face visitation in Dallas. " - Jessie

That's reprehensible. - Stephen Mack

"David Attenborough has backed calls for the reintroduction of wolves to the Scottish highlands. The respected naturalist and broadcaster said that allowing wolves back into the wild would not harm anyone and that the animals had been unfairly demonised over the years. “I think getting wolves back into the wild cannot harm anyone,” he told Scots Magazine’s latest April edition. Wolves disappeared from the Scottish highlands towards the end of the 18th century when they were hunted to extinction and can now only be seen in Scotland in captivity. Mr Attenborough continued: “They have been demonised over the years, but really they’re gentle and very loyal creatures, whose sole purpose is to survive and look after each other. “There’s no ecological reason not to welcome wolves back - they shouldn’t be in captivity when there’s so much space for them to flourish in the environment.”" - Jessie

I agree with Attenborough on the merits, but I'm not optimistic about a reintroduction given the routine slaughter of birds of prey at the hands of rich landowners. - John (bird whisperer)

"A 'minesweeping' pig has been barred from a pub bar and slapped with a booze ban - after it started robbing pints and headbutting punters. The micro-pig called Frances Bacon eats, sleeps and drinks at her owner's inn but started 'minesweeping' - drinking from discarded ale glasses. Customers had also started letting her sup beer or cider from their drinks at the Conquering Hero pub." - Jessie

Frances Bacon. - joey - team everyone

"You got: Genghis Khan (The Great Khan). You are loyal, strong, and wise, just like the ultimate Mongolian ruler, Genghis Khan. You are practical, emphasizing utility over frivolousness. Pride is a matter of great importance to you and you won’t suffer any disrespect." - Jessie

All the word's a stage, and we're not even players :) #teamscenery - Eivind

"After being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2007, Terry Pratchett made considerable donations to Alzheimer research funding, lobbied the British government for increased dementia research, and participated in a documentary on the condition (Living With Alzheimer’s), before passing away earlier this month at 66. Since then, Pratchett’s friends and family have encouraged well-wishers to support dementia research in his honor to incredible results, with BBC News reporting that the Research Institute For the Care of Older People (RICE) has received a “huge pledge” of donations since the author’s death (£50,515 and counting)." - Jessie

"Dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups are calling for museums of science and natural history to “cut all ties” with fossil fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers. A letter released on Tuesday asserts that such money is tainted by these donors’ efforts to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. “When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge,” the letter states. “This corporate philanthropy comes at too high a cost.”" - Jessie

"The letter does not mention specific companies, but it does name David H. Koch, who sits on the boards of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and has given tens of millions of dollars to those institutions. Koch Industries is a privately held corporation with subsidiaries in energy and other industries. Mr. Koch and his family have funded conservative causes, including scientists and organizations that contest the role of humans in climate change. Public records show that many fossil-fuel companies have made similar contributions to such organizations and scientists over the years. The letter is a project of the Natural History Museum, a mobile museum that draws attention to “social and political forces that shape nature yet are left out of traditional natural history museums,” said its co-founder and director, Beka Economopoulos. A petition drive, also released on Tuesday and sponsored by environmental organizations including Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, urges the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History to “Kick Koch off the board!” Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University and signer of the letter, said the donors seek a halo they do not deserve. “Cloaked in the garb of civic-mindedness, they launder their image while simultaneously and covertly influencing the content offered by those institutions,” he said. Eric Wohlschlegel, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, said he could not comment on the letter because he had not seen it." - Jessie

"Allegations that contributions from donors like Mr. Koch influence institutions exhibits are not new. A 2010 investigation in The New Yorker noted that an underlying message of exhibits in the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is that humans “evolved in response to a changing world.” The article said that such language suggests that climate change has been a feature of the planet since prehistoric times, which plays down human contributions to climate change. Randall Kremer, director of public affairs for the museum, said that Mr. Koch served on the advisory board, which is “a consultative board not a governing board,” and that “the museum director has no plans to ask any members to step down.” Mr. Kremer added that while Mr. Koch was the largest single donor to the museum, “he signed our standard gift agreement, which prohibits donor or sponsor involvement in content.” A spokesman for the American Museum of Natural History, Roberto Lebron, said, “Donors do not determine the interpretation or presentation of scientific content.” Eric Chivian, founder of the center for health and the global environment at Harvard Medical School and a signer of the letter, said he was not convinced that policies barring donors from having direct control over exhibits are effective. “It is just human nature not to bite the hand that feeds you,” he said. Mr. Koch, who has given $100 million to Lincoln Center to renovate the former New York State Theater and supports many other institutions, has said that his contributions to the museums come from a deep love of science, and from being “blown away and just fascinated” by the dinosaurs on his first visit to the American Museum of Natural History when he was 14. Mr. Koch and his company did not respond directly to a request for comment about the letter. Dr. Chivian, who as co-founder of the group International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War shared the organization’s 1985 Nobel Prize, said natural history museum contributions from the Koch brothers were fundamentally different from their contributions to arts institutions. “The Koch brothers have no stake in what is played at Lincoln Center,” Dr. Chivian said. But such funding for museums is no more acceptable than it would be if “a major tobacco company offered to fund an exhibit for them devoted to lung diseases.” Chris Norris, a paleontologist and prominent blogger on museum issues, warned that if museums started removing board members or turning down donations, they risked damaging their reputations for objectivity. Doing so, he added, would enable “others to argue that the information they provide is partisan and not to be trusted.”" - Jessie

"A man in Norway faces jail after cutting off his own hair and beard and then gluing it to another man’s head in an apparent attempt to create a toupée. According to prosecutor Harald Bilberg, the man, who is in his 40s, is claiming that the recipient of the home-made hairpiece had consented to the treatment. “He was bald, so the accused claims that they had agreed to create a toupée for the aggrieved party,” Bilberg told the Bergens Tidende newspaper. “I must admit that I have never encountered such a case in my career.”" - Jessie

Or they might sweep it under the rug. - Ell Bee, See?

"Over the weekend, officials put out a news release saying that Duarte, 41, broke into the American Power Yoga studio on Mockingbird Lane late Saturday and set it on fire. Minimal damage was done, and about 100 people in businesses nearby were evacuated. The case made national news, probably in part because of the big, cute smile Duarte has for her mugshot. "In a way, it was kind of a celebration," Duarte says of setting the yoga studio on fire. She chose Saturday night because she knew the building would be empty. "I waited until late at night because I did not want to hurt anyone, that was not my intention."" - Jessie

x_X - COMPLICATED MR. NOODLE

"A Chicago fire extinguisher manufacturing building collapsed after burning Thursday. We're told more than 150 firefighters were called to the scene that went to 3 alarms. First Deputy Fire Commissioner Charles Stewart III said the nature of the blaze made it difficult to reach the flames with water. "We had one engine feed another engine to another engine until we got water on the fire," he told WMAQ-TV. (UPI) Firefighters said no injuries were reported and the cause of the fire remained under investigation Friday." - Jessie

"The HazMat response that had been called because of the materials used to make fire extinguishers was canceled shortly before 4 a.m., but crews still had water pouring on the building in an attempt to tamp down hotspots underneath the rubble. A fire official said getting enough water to the structure proved difficult." - Jessie

"China's Communist party has announced plans to clamp down on the "reckless" hordes of elderly dancers that have transformed the country's once orderly parks and squares into a disco inferno. Millions of amateur dancers take to the streets of China's cities each evening to engage in wildly popular sessions of "square dancing". However, following a growing number of complaints about noise pollution and congested pavements, Beijing has decided to act. News rules are being drawn up to regulate where square dancing can take place, at what time and – crucially – at what volume. Meanwhile an "expert panel" has been created to devise a menu of 12 state-sanctioned dance routines that China's grandma groovers will be allowed to perform. "Square dancing represents the collective aspect of Chinese culture, but now it seems that the overenthusiasm of participants has dealt it a harmful blow with disputes over noise and venues. So we have to guide it with national standards and regulations," Liu Guoyong, the sports official who leads China's "mass fitness department" told state media." - Jessie

" Wang Guangcheng, a fitness expert who is leading the regulatory panel, said the rules were essential. "All the negative comments on square-dancing are about reckless practicing without caring about the public benefits. The unified drills will help keep the dancing on the right track where they can be performed in a socially responsible way." Attempts to regulate the spontaneous square dance community ruffled feathers among aficionados such as Tang Qing, a 42-year-old from Jiangsu province. "The beauty of dance lies in the differences between everyone's steps," said Ms Tang, whose online square dance videos have attracted hundreds of thousands of hits. " - Jessie

" Yang Liping, a 35-year-old famed for her choreography for a viral track celebrating president Xi Jinping, said she would stick to her own moves. "I will still dance with the moves I have designed." Internet users attacked the move as an attempt to draw yet another aspect of Chinese life under Communist Party control. "Is this more suppression of cultural innovation?" asked one user of Weibo, China's answer to Twitter. Another expressed exasperation at the party poopers behind the rules. "Not even the square dance can escape ideology." " - Jessie

"British police said on Monday they were hunting for thieves who broke into an apartment in northwest England and stole 38 Royal Python snakes. The non-venomous snakes, which included eight pregnant females, were taken from a house in St Helens last week, police added. Two men were spotted leaving the scene carrying two sacks. "This is a large collection of snakes that the victim had been gathering for a while," said Det. Con. Neil Henry of Merseyside Police. According to a website for Royal Python keepers, www.theroyalpython.co.uk, the snakes grow to an average length of 4-5 feet (1.2-1.5 meters) and make great pets, as they have good temperaments and are easy to tame. Police said the snakes were "extremely unlikely to pose any threat to the public"." - Jessie

I have a few concerns. - Jennifer Dittrich

Truly, a Monty Python Haul. - bentley

"We're going to learn Python one way or another," the first man was heard to say... - walt crawford

"U.S. Figure Skating has lofty goals across all four disciplines at this week’s World Championships in Shanghai, China, including winning its first women’s medal in nine years. Olympians Ashley Wagner, Gracie Gold and Polina Edmunds are all medal threats, the U.S. champion Wagner in particular. Their biggest competition will be three Russians, including Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and Yelena Radionova, the two women who beat Wagner at the Grand Prix Final in December. Wagner, Gold and Edmunds are all trying to become the first U.S. women’s Olympic or Worlds individual medalist since Kimmie Meissner and Sasha Cohen in 2006, the longest drought since World War I." - Jessie

"NBC will air coverage Saturday from 8-10 p.m. ET." - Jessie

"The world's first commercially available handheld flamethrower has been created, and it looks terrifying. The XM42, made by Ion Productions, can launch flame to a distance of up to eight metres and is readily transportable, with no need for a backpack of fuel. Simply load up the refillable tank with regular, car-ready petrol and away you go. Chris Bryars of Ion said, "We wanted to bring a device to the market that represents what a real flamethrower should be", while the blurb on the website says that it is a "fun device to enjoy with friends" and ideal for "clearing snow and ice, eliminating weeds, insect control, pyrotechnic event displays and bonfire starting". Yes, yes that's exactly what people will be using it for." - Jessie

is that wise? - Halil

Probably not. - Jessie

They should be sued for advertising that as a weedkiller. Anyone using it that would be sure to start a fire. There are flame weedkillers but it's a very small flame and even that's a danger to use if you're not careful. - Spidra Webster

"The Serbian government asked people on Tuesday not to dispose of hand grenades and other munitions in the garbage, hoping to minimize accidents as it imposes tighter controls over privately held weapons. Hundreds of thousands of unregistered arms, many stashed away after the wars in the former-Yugoslavia in the 1990s, are estimated to be at large in the country with a population of 7.3 million. That is in addition to over 1 million registered weapons. Parliament passed a law last month setting strict conditions for owning firearms, including medical and psychiatric checks, following a surge in gun-related crime." - Jessie

"People can hand weapons into the police under an amnesty that runs until June 4, or face up to five years in jail for illegal possession. But, fearing people will just dump their weapons, the Interior Ministry issued a plea on Tuesday: "The ministry ... appeals on citizens not to dispose of hand grenades and explosive ordnance in garbage containers and such places ... they should instead call the nearest police station and officers will arrive as soon as possible to take the ordnance away," it said. " - Jessie

Even Serbia has better gun control than the US. - Big Joe Silenced

"Although target audience affects all books, I'm going to dive deeper into one genre where it is absolutely critical—Urban Fantasy . This is the genre where we most frequently show characters on the covers, and the target audience is overwhelmingly women. It's also the genre where the covers get the most abuse for stereotypically having a hot woman on the cover with a gun, a bared midriff, and a bad tramp stamp tribal tattoo. The fans roll their eyes. the authors complain. People even make fun of the covers for charity . So what's going on here? If women are the target audience, how are these books ending up with objectified covers? I think there's a lot of overlap with similar issues in how women are portrayed in comics and gaming. However, as I said, the target audience is primarily women. So it sets aside the whole aspect of comics and gaming historically being a male-dominated media for now." - Jessie

The funny part to me is that there's urban fantasy and sexxxay urban fantasy, but both often end up getting lumped in together. You explore a lot of the same themes in the Dresden Files and Hollows books, but Rachel Morgan is more sexualized than Harry Dresden and there's more romance and sex as a central plot point in the Hollows books themselves. Both have them, but in one they're emphasized a lot more than the other. - Jennifer Dittrich

"U.S. champion Jason Brown said he will not attempt a quadruple jump at the World Figure Skating Championships in Shanghai next week. “It’s something I work on every day, but it was not at the consistency level that we want to put it in the program for Worlds,” Brown said Thursday. Brown, 20, did not attempt a quad in winning the U.S. Championships in January. He added a quad toe loop for the Four Continents Championships short program in February, two-footed the landing and did not attempt a quad in the free skate. He was ninth in the short program and improved to finish sixth after the free skate at Four Continents." - Jessie

"“I’m super proud of the growing and learning experience that trying the quad at Four Continents provided, and I think that was a big step,” Brown said. He reasoned that he wanted to hit a goal of helping the U.S. men keep three spots for the 2016 World Championships in Boston. To do that, two of the three U.S. men’s placements next week must add up to 13 or fewer (sixth and seventh, for example). “Where my quad is at right now, it requires me to not have it in the program,” Brown said. “I think we knew that earlier on, after doing it at Four Continents.”" - Jessie

*sadface* - Jessie

"Deputy constables with Precinct 4 say around 7:00am this morning, the victim got onto the southbound lanes of the I-45 North Freeway somewhere around FM 1960. The woman, driving a red Dodge Avenger, honked her horn at the driver of a white colored SUV for an unknown reason. The victim told constables the driver of the SUV then began to taunt her. That driver then pulled up to the right side of the victim's vehicle and opened fire, striking the victim in the back of the head. The woman called 911 and pulled over just before the Richey exit on I-45. Deputy constables say the woman was going in and out of consciousness, but managed to tell them the gunman was a male wearing a blue baseball cap." - Jessie

o.O - Jessie

O.o The hell? - Soup in a TARDIS

Someone didn't read the "Drive Friendly" signs all over Texas highways - Amit Patel

"It takes a committed bunhead to spend eight hours hiking over a mountain with a 13,000-foot peak just to get to ballet class. It also requires one devoted to nature. Karole Armitage is both. As a child, she spent summers at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colo., a former ghost town from the silver mining period where her father, a biologist, did research. “Starting at about age 13, I would hike straight over the mountain to go to Aspen, where Ballet West had a summer residency,” Ms. Armitage said recently at her TriBeCa apartment. “I would stay there for three weeks and hike back. That’s the crazy way I grew up.” Her father would accompany her during those remote and rigorous treks. Now 61 and a well-established choreographer, Ms. Armitage retains that bond with the natural world in her lush work, which melds classical ballet with sinuous silhouettes: limbs twist and lengthen like curling vines. Ms. Armitage has moved beyond her love of nature to directly express her concern over its future. In 2013, she created “Fables on Global Warming,” a performance-art ballet inspired by animal stories and, last year, presented an ecology-minded piece for families, “Four Seasons — A Spinning Planet.” Now with the premiere of “On the Nature of Things,” performed by Armitage Gone! Dance, March 25-27 at the American Museum of Natural History, Ms. Armitage’s activist side has grown even more brazen as she tackles climate change. The dance takes place on three stages in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life — with its 94-foot blue whale suspended from the ceiling — and features live narration and original text by Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, a MacArthur fellow and professor of biology and population studies at Stanford who has known Ms. Armitage since she was 2. “Nature is my source of solace and a great inspiration choreographically,” Ms. Armitage said. “So the fact of global warming gives me dismay. I just thought, maybe I can do something about the topic and what better place than the Museum of Natural History?”" - Jessie

"Her research led to the discovery of an essay by Dr. Ehrlich that focuses on the culture surrounding science. His text, written for “On the Nature of Things,” stresses that the public doesn’t fully understand what’s at stake. Ms. Armitage views her dance and Dr. Ehrlich’s text as parallel journeys. “What it’s meant to do is to make the subject matter completely personal and emotional,” she said. “You go from a sense of peace and balance to peril and turbulence and population pressures and stress; then you see a confrontation and reckoning with that, which leads to a change of consciousness to rediscover equilibrium. To me, it’s a matter of changing how we think.” For Dr. Ehrlich, collaborating with Ms. Armitage and the museum is a way to reach the public on a personal level. “One of the things that we’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt is that telling people what the science is doesn’t change their behavior,” Dr. Ehrlich said. “What we need is to change attitudes.”" - Jessie

"While there have been performances at the museum — in December, Savion Glover appeared as part of a Kwanzaa celebration — it is hardly a formidable player in the city’s expanding world of dance presenters. “On the Nature of Things,” which includes performances by children from Manhattan Youth Ballet, is the museum’s most ambitious undertaking of this sort. “It’s such a different world for them,” Ms. Armitage said of the administration. “They didn’t really understand that you needed to rehearse. They thought we could walk in, like a corporate event, and just do it.” In the end, she secured four hours of dress rehearsal time. “It’s terrifying,” Ms. Armitage added. Still, she was convinced that her dance needed to happen at the museum. Ruth Cohen, the director of its center for lifelong learning, said the performance was a chance to emphasize a scientific idea in a fresh way. “It’s a still-life hall, right?” she said, referring to the room’s models and dioramas. “This is really bringing movement to it.” The work, seen at a recent rehearsal, begins with a dreamy, meditative duet for Megumi Eda and Cristian Laverde Koenig, but as more dancers enter — gradually expanding to 35 — the choreography takes a frenetic turn as the performers, increasingly ruthless and desperate, fight for space. A quieter scene, set to Arvo Pärt’s “Für Alina,” follows, evoking blindness; it’s Ms. Armitage’s way of saying that it’s time to pay attention. Gradually, the dancers move from suffering to enlightenment; in the final section, the children arrive. “It’s a renewal of faith that we can make change,” Ms. Armitage said, “and children embody that.” When Ms. Armitage was a child, she participated in field work with various scientists, but during her teenage years ballet took precedence. Her career led her to New York and later to Switzerland, where she joined the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, under George Balanchine and Patricia Neary’s direction, in 1973. Three years later, she returned to New York and joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company before striking out on her own. But the lectures she heard from the age of 5 stuck; she said she was formed by the scientists’ sense of discipline and objectivity. In “On the Nature of Things,” Ms. Armitage is conducting an experiment: She hopes to shift the audience’s consciousness through dance. “The body speaks because it’s so intuitive and not based on language,” she said. “People get the visceral experience, and I think it’s the best way to convey an emotional journey. This is a love affair with nature: It goes through some very tormented and dark and difficult times, but like any love affair, in order for it to continue, you have to grow.”" - Jessie

"Because apparently, being the first girl to pitch a shut-out game in the Little League World Series and the first Little League player ever to make the cover of Sports Illustrated (not only because of her insane pitching arm, but her talent in basketball and soccer, too) at thirteen isn’t enough. Now, sports prodigy Mo’ne Davis is having her story adapted into a movie by the Disney Channel." - Jessie

"keep him looking in that direction and i’ll keep signaling for help" - Jessie

"is it good? i’m sorry? i said, is that an interesting book? oh my, yes very interesting why, just now the heroine is being interrupted by someone incredibly rude" - Soup in a TARDIS

"The Texas Senate voted Wednesday afternoon to approve so-called "campus carry" the second piece of major gun legislation the body has given the go-ahead this week. In addition to being able to carry their handgun in hip-holster, gun owners with concealed handgun licences have now been approved by the senate to carry their guns onto Texas' public college campus, which have previously been gun-free zones. Private schools retain the autonomy to determine if they want firearms on campus or not. Brian Birdwell, the Granbury Republican who authored the bill, insisted under repeated questioning from Democrats that he wasn't privileging those kids getting private educations, he was just respecting their schools' property rights. Exempting Baylor had nothing to do with its being one of the largest private employers in Birdwell's district, of course." - Jessie

Hopefully after that happens, someone will decide to repeal this before anyone else gets hurt. - Jessie

"But I am not here to talk about the democratizing heroism of self-publishers and crowdsourcers. Or about the growing centrality of the consumer, who is able to customize her reading experience by telling Amazon precisely what she wants to read before any work goes to press. I am here to talk about The Billionaire’s Bodyguard Bride. This is one of the first success stories of the process, a Kindle Scout–approved book soon to be “published by Kindle Press,” unfolding the romance between kick-ass “covert protection” agent Lauren Reynolds and gorgeous business mogul Rafe Dimitriou. We meet them at a wedding-themed fashion show where Lauren plays the bride and Rafe the groom. They have a past. “His kisses had tasted like forever,” but those “hard muscular lines that provided the perfect counterpoint to her soft curves” were not enough to save their relationship after he discovered that she had infiltrated his heart for a newspaper story." - Jessie

"When a guilty pleasure works, it means suspense or an appealing voice or soaring fantasy elements have overridden weak prose or flat characterization or dumb plot contrivances, so that the net reading experience is positive. But other books, oh other books, sail across that fine line between being pleasurable despite their badness and being pleasurable because of their badness. (And being nonpleasurable because of their badness, that’s always an option too.) Instead of forcing readers to weigh pros against cons, these titles collapse the pro-con distinction. If a guilty pleasure is an occasional, delicious bag of potato chips, these books are a nacho tower fluorescent with cheap cheese, unappetizing, weirdly compelling, “so bad it’s good.” You don’t feel guilty enjoying it in spite of its flaws. Rather, you feel some mix of superior and delighted as you devour it on account of its flaws." --> IT'S LIKE SHE'S FOUND OUR WEBSITE. - Jessie

“Harry Potter meets David Sedaris meets Texas.” --> You know you want to read this. - Jessie

lololol - Soup in a TARDIS

"Perhaps it began with the red Adidas gym bag stuffed with $800,000 in cash. Then came the trail of overhyped and failed wine ventures here in the heart of Napa Valley, and the furious court battles between Robert Dahl, who ran a struggling vineyard, and his chief investor, Emad Tawfilis, who had willingly handed over the gym bag to offer the vintner seed capital. Their dispute, in a region where money flows like, well, wine, climaxed Monday in the style of a pulp fiction thriller, with a wounded Mr. Tawfilis racing frantically through the grapevines as Mr. Dahl, carrying a silencer-equipped .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol and driving a black sport utility vehicle, methodically pursued and then killed him in sight of arriving sheriff’s deputies. Mr. Dahl, 47, a former Minnesotan with a checkered background, later shot himself to death as officers closed in after a chase up a twisting valley road." - Jessie

"The Napa County sheriff’s office said Wednesday that it was still sorting out Monday’s events. But Mr. Tawfilis, who had given Mr. Dahl the $800,000 and more to finance another winery that may have been defunct at the time of the investment, had told his lawyer that day that he was meeting Mr. Dahl to examine documents and talk about settling the lawsuit he had filed to recover his losses. Days before, a judge appeared to have backed Mr. Dahl into a legal corner, ordering a hearing on an 18-count contempt citation for violating court orders not to move or dispose of corporate assets and lying to the court. “The settlement conference was nothing more than an ambush to kill Emad,” said Lewis Perdue, the publisher of Wine Industry Insight, who is also a mystery writer and a former police-blotter journalist. He said he had talked to both men and written extensively about their legal dispute. Mr. Dahl, those who knew him say, came across at first as an ambitious, fast-talking salesman with a wealth of moneymaking ideas and the appearance of financial competence. When he arrived in California around 2011 from Minnesota, he left behind a group of investors who so liked his pitch for Duraban International, a company he had founded to produce a mold-killing spray, that they bought the firm. But they later decided that the product “wasn’t what it was purported to be” and sued Mr. Dahl, Steven J. Lodge, a lawyer for the investors, said in a telephone interview from Anoka, Minn. That was one of two lawsuits Mr. Lodge said he had filed on behalf of unhappy associates of Mr. Dahl’s. “He was real good at getting into deals,” making his business partners upset, “and then exiting in a ball of fire,” Mr. Lodge said. “I considered him kind of pathological.”" - Jessie

"Mr. Dahl and Mr. Tawfilis met sometime after Mr. Dahl, who was married and had three children, moved to a San Francisco suburb around 2011. Mr. Tawfilis, 48, of Los Gatos, worked in the Silicon Valley tech industry, but apparently in finance and accounting rather than software. A soft-spoken, private man, he was unlike the beefy, quick-tempered Mr. Dahl, according to Steve Burch, a winemaker who worked for Mr. Dahl for two and a half years. But the two shared one thing, he said: the dream of having a place in Napa’s glamorous wine industry. “It’s not about the wine or the work that goes into it,” Mr. Burch said. “It’s about the lifestyle — drinking wine every night and having great dinners.” According to court papers, Mr. Dahl said he had the entree that Mr. Tawfilis sought, a Minnesota business called the Patio Wine Company. In 2012 and 2013, according to court documents, Mr. Tawfilis lent Mr. Dahl $1.2 million to finance the venture, taking 97.5 percent of the company’s stock and its assets as collateral. In return, he was to split profits from wine sales that the loan financed. What he did not know, Mr. Tawfilis claimed in a subsequent lawsuit, was that Mr. Dahl had already dismantled Patio and was siphoning his money into a another winery and a Napa craft brewery that was, at one point, said to be losing $100,000 a month. By early 2012, the court papers state, the two men were at odds over terms of the loan. But Mr. Tawfilis, undeterred, delivered the balance — at least $800,000 — in a bag the next year. Mr. Dahl, elated, distributed a picture of the bag to associates. Michael Calhoun, the husband of a member of the family trust that owns the land, the wine grapes and the structure for Mr. Dahl’s winery, said Mr. Dahl told Mr. Tawfilis he could get better deals on bulk wine purchases if he paid in cash. “He wanted cash, and Emad met with him with Emad’s accountant,” Mr. Calhoun said. “He handed Robert $800,000 in cash in a red Adidas bag, and Emad regretted it terribly.” Mr. Dahl’s winery, Dahl Vineyards, found itself in regular trouble with county regulators, bringing in busloads of tourists to tastings over officials’ complaints that he lacked permits. Though the venture was little more than a leased renovated barn, his website waxed ecstatic about “the ideal home for his own wine brand that could reflect his commitment, heritage and his entrepreneurial spirit.” But early last year, Mr. Dahl had fallen behind in loan payments and Mr. Tawfilis, investigating, discovered that Patio Wine no longer existed. A volley of lawsuits followed, with the sides exchanging charges of fraud, money-laundering and usury, among others. Mr. Tawfilis, no longer working by that time, “was consumed by this,” his San Francisco lawyer, David Wiseblood, said in an interview. “This was a lot of money for him.” Mr. Tawfilis was winning the legal war, Mr. Wiseblood and court documents both indicated. Mr. Dahl was uncooperative, dodging court orders and making statements that the judge considered deceptive. But negotiations continued even as the battle raged, and by last week, Mr. Wiseblood stated, the sides had agreed to meet in Napa to discuss a settlement. That arrangement fell apart on Friday, after Mr. Tawfilis sent representatives to enforce a court order that Mr. Dahl turn over five large metal tanks that were part of the collateral for the loan. The tanks had disappeared, and Mr. Wiseblood canceled the session. But on Monday, he said, Mr. Tawfilis told him that he had exchanged text messages with Mr. Dahl, and that they had agreed to meet at the vineyard that morning to examine some of Mr. Dahl’s records. “My advice was, ‘Don’t go to Dahl Vineyards alone — you canceled the meeting for a good reason,’ ” Mr. Wiseblood said. But Mr. Tawfilis went anyway. Mr. Dahl had no documents to examine, however, and at 11:10 a.m. the two men held a brief telephone conference with their lawyers. “There was no screaming, no profanity,” Mr. Wiseblood said. “There was no hint of what was to come.” Mr. Dahl’s lawyer, Kousha Berokim, said in an interview that he never saw a suggestion of violence in his client. After the 11:10 phone call, he said, he believed that the two parties “were inching toward a number and a settlement.” “I was hoping for a phone call telling me, ‘We’ve agreed on these terms, draft an agreement so we can sign it,’ ” Mr. Berokim said. “That phone call did not come in.” Minutes after the telephone conference, Napa County deputies received a 911 cellphone call from Mr. Tawfilis. He had been shot, he said, and was running through the vineyard. Mr. Dahl was in pursuit in his black S.U.V. As rescuers arrived, Mr. Tawfilis fled onto a street intersection and collapsed, the deputies said in a statement. Mr. Dahl got out of the vehicle, walked up to him and shot him again, then got back in the S.U.V. and fled. Mr. Calhoun, the relative of the landowners, depicted Mr. Dahl as desperate. “Robert Dahl’s whole life was at stake, and it was do or die, and it wasn’t doing,” he said. “He had a lot of anger toward Emad. It’s irrational because all Emad did was invest in his company.” With squad cars and a helicopter in pursuit, Mr. Dahl sped up a heavily forested road and crashed through a private gate. Deputies surrounded the area and called in a SWAT team, but there was no need. Mr. Dahl was found dead in his driver’s seat of a gunshot wound." - Jessie

Crazy. - rønin

"The parties began fighting in the street. "All the doors were flying open, and people were getting out and running around and hitting each other," said Cherie Stiles, one of the owners of the Bear Paw Coffee Shop and Deli. The commotion quickly drew the attention of those in the area. "The street was lined with people," said Jody Thornton, who was working at Sheehy Law Office. At one point, one of the men in the pickup fired up a chain saw and began swinging it around. The man soon turned it off, and no one was injured, Burdick said." - Jessie

A rollicking good brawl. Town's got something to talk about for decades :-) - Starmama

"An inventor of an electric tricycle headset, who used graphics software and 3D printing technology to develop the device, has applied the technology to wheelchairs to help people with spinal injuries. Hung Cheng-ching (洪正清), who has spinal cord injury, has invented an 11kg electric tricycle headset that can be attached to various types of wheelchairs to convert them into electrically powered chairs. The tricycle headset, called the “Sherpa bike,” won a gold medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva in April last year and is now being sold on the market. Wheelchair users, with the help of the Sherpa bike headset, no longer need to worry that their vehicles might roll backward when going up a slope." - Jessie

*cheers* There will be a Season 3! - Jessie

"Starbucks is encouraging its baristas to write the words "Race Together" on cups to get customers talking about racial issue. The idea started internally when about 2,000 Starbuckians attended a forum to talk about Ferguson, Mo., but surely no one foresaw the shit storm that would erupt when it went public. This isn't the coffee company's first time at the social cause rodeo. It's taken on guns and gay rights gamely, with applause from its largely liberal audience. But somehow, the clumsy nature of reducing a serious, impossibly complex national conversation to a hashtag on a coffee cup has united Twitter users of all races in roundly denouncing the attempt." - Jessie

" Entrepreneur points out that the campaign puts an unfair burden on the baristas. And let's be frank, they maybe aren't being given the resources and information to hold an informed, nuanced discussion of the topic when a customer walks in and asks their feels on the subject of cultural appropriation, and by the way, do they find it awkward that ordering a black coffee or a flat white espresso will now have an extra layer of uncomfortable meaning? More than a few people are suggesting Starbucks needs to first have a serious conversation with itself about race—more diversity in leadership, a serious look at where they are and aren't putting their stores (interestingly, there are no Starbucks actually in the town of Ferguson), and of course, fair trade for all their coffee growers." - Jessie

" Starbucks, for its part, claimed that broaching the topic is worth a little discomfort. But that was right before vp of communications Corey duBrowa deleted his Twitter account because attacks were distracting from a "respectful conversation." The important thing is that Starbucks has finally united Americans in a conversation about how much they don't want to have a conversation about race—at least, not before they have their coffee" - Jessie