In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

California Attorney General Kamala Harris "has announced that she will run to replace retiring Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer in 2016. Good.

[Content Note: Nazi reference] A sitting Republican Congressman, Rep. Randy Weber of Texas, criticized President Obama for not going to Paris for the anti-terror rally by comparing him to Hitler in the most reprehensible way, tweeting: "Even Adolph Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn't do it for right reasons." What the everloving fuck? Get your party together, Republicans. Jesus Jones.

Speaking of Republicans: Mitt Romney is definitely running for president again. Paul Ryan is definitely not running. And Chris Christie is probably running. Watch this space for further developments on Republican White Men's Race to Be the Absolute Fucking Worst.

[CN: Rape culture] Amazon has decided it wants all of us to cancel our Amazon Prime subscriptions, apparently: "Woody Allen is to write and direct his first television series for Amazon's video-on-demand service. The 79-year-old film-maker has been signed up to make a full season of the as-yet-untitled series for Amazon Prime. It is the Oscar-winner's debut TV project after more than 40 films in a career spanning more than half a century." Fuck you, Amazon.

[CN: Rape culture] Ninety-five US colleges and universities are now being investigated by the Department of Education for Title IX sexual assault violations. Ninety. Five.

[CN: War; terrorism] During a five-hour clash with Boko Haram along the Nigeria-Cameroon border, Cameroonian troops killed more than 140 Boko Haram fighters. Yesterday's conflict started when Boko Haram attacked a Cameroonian military camp in Kolofata, as part of their ongoing attempts to gain additional territory outside what they've already grabbed in Nigeria.

[CN: Terrorism; death] In Baga, where Boko Haram massacred hundreds of people, with estimates ranging as high as 2,000, defense groups have given up trying to tally the number of dead bodies, because there are so many of them.

[CN: Terrorism; racism] The new issue of Charlie Hebdo features a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad on its cover, because of course it does. I know it's unpopular to hold multiple thoughts in one's head these days, but I simultaneously grieve for the people who were killed, rage at the people who killed them, fear for the Muslims who are being harmed by Islamophobic blowback, and have contempt for the people who feel that the response to all of this is a belligerent insistence on irreverence, because sensitivity is seen as weakness instead of strength.

In wildly different news, here is a cool photo, believed to be the first ever taken, of an oceanic shark giving birth.

Today, the trailer for Spy, the new Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy film, debuted on Yahoo. I love that part of the premise of the film is a fat woman's cultural invisibility becoming her biggest asset. Twisty.

Studley, the ASPCA's Cat of the Year for 2014, is a therapy cat who was rescued many years ago after being abandoned by a breeder. I tells ya: You rescue them, and they rescue us right back. ♥