Zooey Deschanel Shocked People Don't Recognize Her Without Bangs. Tabs, Friday April 15, 2022
Russia's Defense Ministry now says that its Black Sea flagship, the guided missile cruiser Moskva, sank all right, but insists it went down while being towed in stormy seas after a fire onboard blowed up its ammunition stores. Ukraine says it sank the ship using Ukrainian-built Neptune anti-ship missiles. CNN reports that two "sources familiar with US and Western intelligence" said that "Ukraine’s claim is believed to be credible, although US officials do not yet have definitive proof," although the US has not independently attributed the reason for the sinking. [CNN]
Russia appears to have retaliated by attacking Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with missiles. [Reuters]
And yes, there were memes. Because we love you, we will spare you the video with stock footage of Moskva and a really bad recorder rendition of "My Heart Will Go On."
Ukraine arrested Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Putin Ukrainian media oligarch who escaped from house arrest near the start of the war, and seized an assload of his assets, including "26 cars, 32 apartments, 23 houses, 30 plots of land, 17 parking spots and a yacht." It's the second yacht belonging to Medvedchuk that Ukraine has confiscated this year. [CNBC]
Here's Ukrainian news video of the bizarre fake railway station and luxury train car at one of his mansions, as featured on Maddow last night.
The New York Times reports that the European Union is preparing to vote on phasing in a complete embargo of Russian oil imports, following an earlier ban on importing Russian coal (although that's being phased in over four months, to "wind down ongoing orders"). The earliest it could come up for a vote would be sometime after the third round of France's elections, which will be held on April 24, the Times says, to "ensure that the impact on prices at the pump doesn’t fuel the populist candidate Marine Le Pen and hurt president Emmanuel Macron’s chances of re-election," according to EU officials. [NYT]
Separately, the Times also reports that Marine Le Pen vowed in a press conference that if she's elected, France would pull out of NATO's integrated military command and stop being so mean to Russia. She also ranted about "globalists" and downplayed the significance of climate change. Le Pen has not yet been offered a prime time show on Fox News. [NYT]
We had no idea that Kim Carnes's 1981 hit "Bette Davis Eyes" was a cover of a 1974 version by Jackie DeShannon. The original is ... very different from the cover, oh golly. Somehow, this is not a parody. [Twitter]
A number of anonymous congressional sources, most of them Democrats, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Sen. Dianne Feinstein suffers episodes of memory loss; some days, the sources said, she's as acute as ever, but "some close to her said that on her most difficult days, she does not seem to fully recognize even longtime colleagues." The sources worry that Feinstein isn't fully able to do her job, and those who spoke to the paper said that raising concerns about Feinstein's age and mental acuity "was painful because of their respect for the senator and her groundbreaking career."
Multiple other Democrats, in on-the record comments, defended Feinstein and said such concerns were misplaced. After the story ran, Feinstein herself told the Chronicle's editorial board that no one had raised such concerns directly with her, and that she has no intention of resigning. She also said that she has had some moments of forgetfulness recently, which she said were due to stress resulting from the death of her husband in February. We have a feeling this story may be with us for a while. Please try not to be monstrous in the comments. [SF Chronicle]
A jury convicted January 6 insurrectionist Dustin Thompson on six federal charges Thursday, including felony obstruction of Congress. The jury was not persuaded by Thompson's attorney's claim that Donald Trump had led the poor lad into a crime he would otherwise never have committed. [Politico]
A very stupid Republican bill that would have combined elements of "Don't Say Gay" with a ban on "Critical Race Theory" was quickly put out of its misery Monday in a Rhode Island House committee. Among the weirder elements of the bill was a line insisting that "History shall be taught using the standards, customs, and traditions in use at the time of the historical event." We're assuming the intent was to prevent teachers from saying slavery or the genocide of Native Americans was bad? In any case, real historians had a fine time making snarky fun of that idiocy on Twitter. Had it been paſsed, the leſsons on Colonial American hiſtory would ſurely have cauſed hyſterical confuſion for ſubſitute teachers. [Patch / Rhode Island H 7539]
Janelle Shane trained an image-generating AI to design Easter eggs in various artistic styles; some runs went quite nicely, like "Easter eggs, acrylic on canvas":
Janelle Shane, AI Weirdness
Since the algorithm included a wide variety of photos from the internet, it sometimes went with fried eggs instead of the boiled kind in a colored shell. In this set, the AI took the cue of "matte painting" and situated monumental eggs in backgrounds for epic movies.
Janelle Shane, AI Weirdness
I kind of love the flying yolks in the upper-right corner here; I may have found a new screensaver. Wonder if I can get a giant sized copy... [AI Weirdness]
Finally, here's a pretty amazing image from storm chaser Chris Riske, who has definitely already heard all your "Riske Business" jokes. It's a video still showing the moment lightning hit his friend's Prius. It fried the car's everything, but the friend is fine. [Twitter]
In the video, you can see a puff of smoke as the car is hit. Poor car stops moving immediately.
Again, nobody hurt but the car, which is probably totaled. Now it's a Toyota Postus. [Chris Riske on YouTube]
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