And now, in Los Angeles…

Authorities in Santa Monica found possible explosives as well as weapons and ammunition Sunday in the car of a man who told them he was in town for the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood, a law enforcement source said.

Early Sunday,  Santa Monica police received a call of a suspected prowler near Olympic Boulevard and 11th Street. Patrol officers responded and encountered an individual who told officers he was waiting for a friend. That led officers to inspect the car and find several weapons and a lot of ammunition as well as tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to create a pipe bomb.

The car had Indiana plates. The man, was was

Everyday Sexism continues to flourish.

A casting call for a new project produced by Quentin Tarantino has caused controversy after a Facebook post invited “whores” to apply.

The post, which has since been deleted, appeared on a casting agency page and began: “Casting Whores for Quentin Tarantino project”. The post later requested that all applicants have “natural breasts” and should put the word “whore” in the subject line.

So the question becomes, do they mean actors who want to play prostitutes? Or do they mean women in general, whom they like to call whores? It’s impossible to tell.

The film doesn’t appear on Quentin Tarantino’s IMDb page. His last film The Hateful Eight drew controversy for its abusive treatment

Mike Skerrit asks his son what it means when she says stop.

My son is three years old. My daughter is five. They play. My son is strong and sometimes he gets the upper hand and giggles as he sits on top of his sister. She says stop. He won’t. He’s laughing so hard he doesn’t hear her. I come running. “What does it mean when she says stop,” I say. Silence. There is no missing my message. He is upset. “It means stop,” he answers ruefully. “When does it mean stop,” I say. “Stop right now.” “It means stop right now. Always. We don’t keep doing it, we don’t ignore her, we don’t make her say it

Peter Walker reports:

Went today to the LaVoy Finicum site on Hwy 395 to see what’s happening. An ongoing source of tension and anger. The memorial has been toned down. William C. Fischer of Idaho and a local friend watch it 24/7 from an adjacent legal (if symbolically problematic…) campsite. They told me they’ll stay until a permanent solution is found. They want the memorial set back off the road with a few parking spaces and a path to access the memorial from the camp. Being set off the road is key: others don’t have to see it. Possibly better than leaving it as a festering source of anger, potential conflict, and recruiting. Would require federal USFS authorization.

They … Read the rest

Because of this claim in a comment:

Does Elizabeth Warren actually have any Native American ancestry?

If she claimed in public she did, but in reality didn’t, then she lied, didn’t she?

Here is Vox explaining the non-issue:

Trump’s comment may be racist against Native Americans, but he’s using it here to sarcastically suggest that Warren really isn’t Native American. (Which, oddly enough, proves that Trump can also be racist while trying to insult someone for being white.)

Trump is referring to a controversy Warren faced over her ancestry during her 2012 Senate campaign.

Warren says she grew up being told that she had Cherokee heritage. “Everyone on our mother’s side — aunts, uncles, and grandparents — talked

And then there’s the junior Senator from Georgia, Republican Frank Perdue, at a “Faith and Freedom” conference today.

According to The Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff, Republican Senator Frank Perdue jokingly told attendees: “We should pray like Psalm 109:8 says: Let his days be few.”

Christians well acquainted with Psalms 108, know that it is not just a wish for Obama to be out of office, but a call for vengeance upon a rival.

According to the American Standard Bible, Psalm 109:7 begins, “When he is judged, let him come forth guilty, And let his prayer become sin.”

Nah, let’s have the King James, instead.

⁷ When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let

Trump. He’s not funny, he’s not cute, he’s not a “rebel.” He’s no more cute than Milo Yiannopoulos or the bullies of reddit or Gamergate or any of this trash. Calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” is just trash. He’s trash. He has a trashy mind and mouth and political campaign.

The furor over Trump’s assaults on the impartiality of a Latino judge had just begun to subside when he lobbed two tweets Friday morning responding to Warren, who had lambasted him as a “thin-skinned, racist bully” in a speech the previous evening.

“Pocahontas is at it again!” Trump wrote in one. “Goofy Elizabeth Warren, one of the least productive U.S. Senators, has a nasty mouth.”

Thus demonstrating that he’s not … Read the rest

Have a thought-leader explaining his thought-leader process to a rapt audience of thought-leader appreciators.

Self-proclaimed “thought leader” Pat Kelly gives his talk on “thought leadership” at the annual CBC This Is That Talks in Whistler, B.C.

Note the scare-quotes.

 … Read the rest

The Advertising Standards Authority puts out a call for evidence on gender stereotypes in advertising.

In recent years, there has been increasing political and public debate on equality issues.  The mocking of women and men in non-stereotypical roles, the reinforcement of stereotyped views of gender roles, and gender-specific marketing to children, as well as concerns regarding objectification, sexualisation and the presentation of an idealised  or unrealistic body image are all issues that have gained considerable public interest.

As a proactive regulator, we want to find out more about these issues and others to ensure we continue to be alive to and in tune with prevailing standards when interpreting and applying the rules. Consequently, we will be doing three things:

That thing I said the other day about how humans are a mistake. One branch of that mistakenness is the taste that some humans have for torture and cruelty as a form of entertainment. Take Andrew Picard, former Etonian, for instance.

Andrew Picard, 18, was found to have more than 2,000 pornographic images of children as young as  two years old, including rape and bestiality. The images were found on his computer at [Eton] after Picard, then 17-years-old, shared the illegal material in an online chat room with an undercover police officer, The Daily Mail reports.

…

Judge Peter Ross said: “This defendant Andrew Picard was a privileged young man. His family are clearly wealthy enough to send

Guest post by iknklast.

I have just recently come back from an annual play festival that I’ve attended several times before. I have always enjoyed this festival; it gives me a chance to interact with other playwrights, to attend workshops, and to see new plays that are in the process of development. The coordinators choose the plays from a large pool of submitted work. This year, there were 680 plays submitted, and only 30 were selected. These plays are then given a reading by trained actors, chosen and directed by a trained director, to allow them to hear their works and engage in a conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of the work. Although this is not in one of … Read the rest