Use This Instead Of Butter For Best Grilled Cheese Sandwiches! Tabs, Fri., Jan. 31, 2020
Yes, that is a real clickbait headline. (The answer is "mayonnaise." Not gonna find out.)
Looks like that's about it for any hope of witnesses at Trump's impeachment trial. (CNN)
Oh lordy there's another tape . (Washington Post)
Does Chuck Schumer have a last-minute surprise to stop a rushed Senate cover-up? Shruggy emoticon! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (New York Times)
The US has seen its first case of person-to-person transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus. (Washington Post) The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a "public health emergency of international concern" yesterday, leading the State Department to warn Americans not to travel to China . (CNN) Guess we should assume our crash positions.
Wait, we meant keep calm and carry a Scootaloo. (Business Insider)
(Experts urge calm, do not actually mention Scootaloo. Their loss.)
Oh great, the coronavirus news has been accompanied by good ol' bigotry and xenophobia. (Vice) At least it's worldwide stupid, not just America, so hooray? (Foreign Policy) French Asian folks aren't taking the bigotry sitting down, and have been tweeting "#JeNeSuisPasUnVirus" -- literally "I'm not a virus." (BBC)
Barack Obama had the USA join the civilized world in 2014 by ending the use and stockpiling of landmines. Yeah, you know what's coming next: Trump wants us to get back into the business of using weapons that maim civilians long after our wars are over. (Vox)
Last May, the Atlantic named former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel a "contributing editor," but only ran one article by him after his upgrade from a mere dude who wrote stuff now and then. Huh! Why was that? WaPo media critic Erik Wemple explains how the magazine's black staffers, pissed off by Emanuel's role in the Chicago police cover-up of Laquan McDonald's killing, got Emanuel removed from the honorary title by writing a letter -- basically a triumph for the moral force of a good argument. (Rhetoric guy cheers.) And as a result, the Atlantic also ended what Wemple calls "the prestige farm that was the 'contributing editor' entry on the masthead," which tended to involve a lot more contributing than editing anyway. Good read! (Washington Post)
Congress created an office within Homeland Security to address complaints about violations of detained immigrants' civil rights. So (acting) Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Fucking Cuccinelli has appointed the former head of an anti-immigration group to be the department's very first "Immigration Detention Ombudsman." Jesus, why not appoint the rotting corpse of Bull Connor to run the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division? (Buzzfeed News)
Emergency doggie: Since Elizabeth Warren has jury duty right now, her golden retriever Bailey has been showing up (OK, fine, with her husband whatsisname) at her campaign events in Iowa. (Buzzfeed News)
DOG IN THE RACE: While Sen. Elizabeth Warren is stuck in DC for the impeachment trial, her most popular surrogate,… https://t.co/c0eBfxqygB
— ABC News (@ABC News) 1580189286.0
And yes, Bailey stays after for selfies.
.@FirstDogBailey wraps up photo line by sprawling out for the kiddos https: //t.co/6Kps8OZreT
— Jonathan Martin (@Jonathan Martin) 1580067321.0
Journamalism Makes a Difference, Serious News Category: ProPublica and theAnchorage Daily News partnered on a series of stories on lax hiring standards for cops in rural Alaska. In some cases, the only people willing to take police jobs in tiny towns had sexual assault or domestic violence convictions on their records. The investigative journamalism created such a stir that Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is calling for legislation to stop that shit. (ProPublica)
Journamalism Makes a Difference, Goofy-Ass News Category: Buzzfeed ran a story about a woman who found out -- years after it was created -- there was a Facebook "business" page called "Samantha Rae Anna Jespersen's Butthole." Ms Jespersen, now 23, first learned of the page in 2015; it somehow had been created when she was 15 years old; possibly by an algorithm that saw some high school friends joking about her butthole as an "interest" -- NOBODY KNOWS. She'd been trying to get Facebook to take the page down, because good christ, nobodywants "butthole" to be what shows up when their name is searched. No luck. But within hours of the Buzzfeed story going live, the page was removed. So that's how to handle problems with tech giants behaving like buttholes. Find a reporter. Otherwise, you're screwed. Also, now the top search results for her name are stories about Facebook's fuckup, so that's better, maybe. (Buzzfeed News)
A telescope in Hawaii has captured the most detailed photos yet taken of the sun. Scientists report the images will help improve our understanding of the sun's structure and physics, and you can actually taste the colors when you're wasted, man. (Guardian)
Hey nerds! CBS's streaming service will let you watch the first episode of its new "Star Trek: Picard" series on YouTube, free for nothing, "for a limited time." I'm typing this Thursday evening, so I'll assume that time includes Friday morning when this runs? I will not pretend I'm not a complete sucker for a good sales gimmick. (YouTube)
I've had this tab about Molly Ivins's particularly Texan brand of feminism open for a while. It's good! Or at least the first few paragraphs are, which is why the tab is still open. (LA Review of Books)
I've also been meaning to read this New York magazine diary of a year's worth of conversations about climate . I hope keeping it open doesn't eat up all my free articles this month. But that's not really what climate anxiety is. (New York)
Also too, Wonkette reader Dana Simpson, who does the nifty comic strip "Phoebe and her Unicorn" (think "Calvin and Hobbes," only with Susie Derkins as the star, and the unicorn is at no point a stuffed animal)blew my mind just now.
There is documentation. (Clarkesville Leaf Chronicle)
Have a good Friday, if you are even able to function now, and I am not sure you should be.
Yr Wonkette is entirely supported by your donations. You should give us money because we write good. FOR YOU.