Check Out Jimmy Kimmel's Brief Mocumentary On Trump's 2,000 Lies (So Far)

Jimmy Kimmel last night unveiled a mockumentary
celebrating Donald Trump's greatest skill. 

Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is no friend of Donald Trump. He, like many late night hosts, mocks Trump constantly. Actually, Kimmel is much gentler than many other late night people. Right, Seth Meyers?   

Last night Kimmel celebrated "Lie2K" marking Donald Trump's 2,000 public lie since taking office. (Apparently, the Washington Post has been keeping track.)

The fun part is Kimmel came up with a spoof on one of those dreadful C-Span documuntaries on public figures. This mockumentary chronicles the crowning achievement of the Trump White House: The sheer number of lies.

Watch:

This Here Woman Is Quite The Bowler

I'm an inexperienced bowler, but I like doing it every now and again.

I'm not that great at accuracy, so I try to throw the ball really hard in the hopes that the wind from the ball rushing past will knock over the pins I miss. Cool theory, but I haven't seen it work much yet.

It could be worse. There's a viral video of a woman bowling in Brazil where things really go off the rails. Maybe a bit high and destructive with the throw? You be the judge:

Oregon Paper Turns The Tables On Garbage-Sifting Prosecutors, Delight Ensues

A fifteen year old article got new
 life on social media this week, with dumpster diving
reporters going through public officials' trash to
make a point about privacy and rights. 

I'm not sure why this  is making the rounds on social media today, but everybody seems to be reviving an Oregon alt weekly newspaper's turning of the tables on nosy police and prosecutors.

Given that police sometimes tend to be overly nosy, i.e. sans search warrants, this decade and a half old tale is one to remember in case this ever happens again.

At the time, police in prosecutors in Oregon decided it was A-OK to go looking through people's garbage cans at curbside looking for evidence of a crime. That is, without a search warrant.

The logic was the garbage and recycling is abandoned property, so it was fair game to go looking through the refuse.

Since there's a lot of personal and potentially private material in garbage - recepts, notes, documents, evidence of where you shopped and when you shopped and where you were, invading garbage seems pretty invasive.

I come down in favor of police sifting through your garbage - but only if they have a search warrant. Since the Willamette Week knew prosecutors and police and the local mayor thought it was OK to search through garbage without a warrant, the reporters there decided to brilliantly turn the tables.

They sifted through the trash left curbside by the prosecutor, police chief and the mayor. Abandoned property, right?

The police chief and especially the mayor were terribly displeased when the Willamette Week reporters fessed up to sifting through their trash. The local prosecutor had a better sense of humor about it.

The anger by the police chief and mayor seemed a little misplaced, because the reporters, judging from that week's trash, concluded that both officials seemed like fine, upstanding citizens. There was certainly more than a whiff of garbage, but no real whiff of scandal.

Here's how the paper wrote about the Police Chief's Mark Kroeker's reaction at the time:

"'This is very cheap,' he blurted out, frowning as we pointed out a receipt with his credit card number, a summary of his wife's investments, an email prepping the mayor about his job application to be police chief of Los Angeles, a well-chewed cigar stub, and a handwritten note scribbled in pencil on a napkin, so personal it made us cringe. We also drew his attention to a newsletter from the conservative political advocacy group Focus on the Family" addressed to Mr and Mrs. Mark Kroeker."

With that, the normally accessible and affable police chief abruptly ended the interview and complained to other media about the Willamette Week's invasion of privacy. The paper did not reveal what was in the personal note on the napkin, but it was nothing nefarious, such as an extra-marital affair or illicet activity.

The paper couldn't get to the mayor's garbage. The bin was up against her house, and the reporters would have trespassed if they'd gone on to her property to check it. But the recycling was curbside, so the reporters had a look.

The contents were mostly just newspapers, all mainstream and middle of the road and reputable.

Then-mayor Vera Katz was livid when she got wind of the recycling heist by the paper. She summoned the reporters, and the newspapers from the recycling bin to her office. She also ordered them to bring the name of the newspaper's lawyer.

The mayor's prepared statement read, in part, "I consider Willamette Week's actions in this matter to be potentially illegal and absolutely unscrupulous and reprehensible....I will consider all my legal options in response to these actions."

Funny, though. The mayor was fine with her police force digging through people's trash. What's the difference?

The local district attorney, possibly sensing a PR mess, didn't get too publicly excited about Willamette Week's dumpster diving. He only asked the reporters, "Do I have to pay for this week's garbage collection?"

However, the paper did detail the findings in the the DA's refuse bin. Again, nothing shady, but the reporters got a LOT of personal information about the guy.

Again, I know this story is 15 years old. But it's a master class for when government or police officials overreach.

I get it. Police have a job to do and we demand that they keep us safe while they conduct their often dangerous work. But it never hurts to keep them in check, though.

Logan Paul YouTube Apology Prompts Classic, Biting Apology Parody

Logan Paul is the latest YouTube star to apologize after really
crossing a line. This inspired the very biting
parody video in this post. 

A guy named Logan Paul has been in the news this week.

He's this big star on YouTube who does a blog in which he does all kinds of crazy, stupid and weird things for entertaining. He has quite a big following. At least did. (He did have up to 15 million subscribers on YouTube. )

He took it a step way too far recently when he uploaded images to YouTube of what was apparently the body of a person who had committed suicide in a Japanese forest. 

Needless to say, there was quite an outcry and the video was taken down. Paul issued two apologies. The first, in which he said he was just trying to raise awareness of suicide, was deemed inadequate.

Amid the growing furor, Paul says he is suspending is YouTube vlog for awhile to give himself "time to reflect."

This series of fumbles and bad apologies has become a trope among YouTube stars, who often try to get more and more outrageous to attract clicks, views and advertising dollars.

Which leads us to this parody series of "apologies" from this fake version of a YouTube biggie.

Lots of truth in the style of this parody:

Impatient Man Finds Another Way To Get Off Plane

This guy decided to leave a plane by opening an emergency
exit and getting out on a wing because it took too long
to get out the usual way. 

If you've ever flown, one minor annoyance is the wait to get off the plane once it lands, particularly if you're seated near the rear of the plane.

The way the airlines overcharge for checked baggage, people cram their stuff as tightly as possible into the overhead compartments. Which means it takes FOREVER for people to get their stuff and get out.

One man on a Ryanair flight from London that landed in Spain found another way out. He just opened the emergency exit and got out onto the wing of the plane.

This is not a recommended means of egress. You do get in trouble for it. In this case, the man, identified as a Polish national, was coaxed back onto the plane and arrested. 

Here's a video from another passenger:

A Very Peaceful, Nature-Filled, Astronomical Look At 2017

Look to the sky to find peace and beauty. A 2017 shot of
northern lights and the big dipper viewed
from Alberta, Canada.

Like most of us, I'm still trying to recover from a chaotic, angry, scary, mean, corrupt, despicable 2017.  

Plus, I'm afraid 2018 isn't looking much better.

Which means we need to look at the bright side. The peaceful side. Nature usually helps.

Nature gets an assist here from Adrien Manduit, who gives us some of his best and favorite time lapses from 2017. You can watch and breathe easy and relax with his video at the bottom of this post.

Most of the images in this video were shot in Iceland, Malawi and Canada. The time lapses go heavy on mesmerizing views of northern lights and intense views of skies filled with millions of stars.

The video closes with this message: "All you have to do is look up."

I guess that will be my talisman going forward. Whenever the world gets to be too much, when people and leaders and the news get to be too much, all I have to do is look up. I already do this, given my fascination with cloud photography.

I guess I was on to something. Manduit proved it. And you should try his recipe. If only to stay sane.

This video proved surprisingly moving for me. I hope it does for you. (H/T BoingBoing)

Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil Causes Family Crisis In Staten Island

A phobia of Looney Tunes' Tasmanian
Devil is at the center of a weird New
York family dispute 

The holidays are finally over, and most of us have headed home after spending time with our families.

Many of our extended families have a few eccentrics among them, but one Staten Island family takes the cake for oddness and discord.

According to the New York Post, Mazem Dayem, 36, has had a lifelong phobia of the Tasmanian Devil, the ill-mannered angry and inept Looney Tunes charactor.

Dayem's father in law, Yunes Doleh, 62, has been tormenting Dayem by menacing him with a toupee that supposedly looks like the Tasmanian Devil.

This all came to a head at a funeral in November, when Doleh waved his toupee at Dayem and grimaced, snarled, grunted and gesticulated toward him.

Which is odd behavior anyway, but especially at a funeral, but maybe that's just me. There's a chatge of criminal contempt against Doleh, lawsuits and general bad blood. I'd love to hear conversations in this family.

And how were your holidays?