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Says here in the Times, regarding US "attacks" on the Russia grid:

Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place "implants" -- software code that can be used for surveillance or attack -- inside the Russian grid.

Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction -- and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.

First, it's the Times, so bring a bag of salt. Second, why would they say this? Sounds like silly bullshit for the campaign, but it's the Times.

So, who runs the country, eh?

Let's take a vote. Who do you want to run the country? The DOD? or the prez?

Or should we just blow this off as some sort of tabloid fairy tale for ratings?

Notre Dame Cathedral holds first mass since devastating fire, with attendees in hardhats

We're gonna need a harder hat.

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.

Wanna buy one?

The Dark Implications of Facial Swap Filter Technology

Last month, Serena Lee was just another bubble tea-addicted New Jersey college student who loved to watch The Office while searching for her future beau on Tinder.

Except, actually, she wasn't. Lee was actually a male Princeton student named Sean who "got bored while cramming for finals and decided to catfish people with the new Snapchat filter."

Yep, that one. The one that makes men look like beautiful women and women look like men you'd cross the street to avoid. The one that's so popular that a lot of people who left Snapchat are re-downloading it just to see what the hype is all about. Snapchat's "gender-swapping" filter, which came out in early May of this year, quickly became a social media hit. And Lee wasn't the only one who immediately used it to pose on Tinder — there's a whole trend of catfishing-for-jokes, which consists almost entirely of men pretending to be women.

While on a surface level the filter may seem like harmless fun, its implications, both conceptual and practical, are deeply troubling. Besides spawning this real-life catfishing phenomenon, which tells us nothing new about men online, Snapchat's employment of face alteration technology along the axis of gender enforces stereotypical ideas of male and female appearances, and raises questions about how we should employ such identity-altering (or concealing) technology in the first place.

Student uses gender-bending Snapchat filter to catch cop allegedly seeking underage sex

A college student wanted to take down potential predators on Tinder. So, he posed as a teen girl using Snapchat's new gender filter — and ended up catching a cop allegedly looking to hook up with a minor.

Ethan, a 20-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area, used the Snapchat filter to pose as a 16-year-old girl named Esther. He created a Tinder account as a 19-year-old girl, but said he was communicating with San Mateo Officer Robert Davies as a 16-year-old, police say.

Alabama becomes seventh state to approve castration for some sex offenses

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday signed into law a measure requiring anyone convicted of sex crimes with children younger than 13 to be chemically castrated as a condition of parole.

Under the new law, offenders required to undergo the reversible procedure must begin the treatment at least a month before their release dates and continue treatments until a judge finds that it's no longer necessary.

Ivey, a Republican, made no public statement about the measure. She had given little indication whether she supported the measure until Monday, the last day she could sign the bill.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Steve Hurst, a Republican representing Calhoun County, who said that if he had his way, offenders would be permanently castrated through surgery.

Chemical castration in the United States

Chemical castration is generally considered reversible when treatment is discontinued, although permanent effects in body chemistry can sometimes be seen, as in the case of bone density loss increasing with length of use of DMPA.

[...] When used on men, these drugs can reduce sex drive, compulsive sexual fantasies, and capacity for sexual arousal. Life-threatening side effects are rare, but some users show increases in body fat and reduced bone density, which increase long-term risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. They may also experience gynecomastia (development of larger-than-normal mammary glands in males).

When used on women, the effects are similar, though there is little research about chemically lowering women's sex drive or female-specific anaphrodisiacs, since most research focuses on the opposite, but anti-androgenic hormone regimens would lower testosterone in women which can impact sex drive or sexual response. These drugs also deflate the breast glands and expand the size of the nipple. Also seen is a sudden shrinking in bone mass and discoloration of the lips, reduced body hair, and muscle mass.

[...] Despite its long history and established use, the drug has never been approved by the FDA for use as a treatment for sexual offenders.

[...] The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida opposes the administration of any drug that is dangerous or has significant irreversible effect as an alternative to incarceration; however, they do not oppose the use of antiandrogen drugs for sex offenders under carefully controlled circumstances as an alternative to incarceration. Law professor John Stinneford has argued that chemical castration is a cruel and unusual punishment because it exerts control over the mind of sex offenders to render them incapable of sexual desire and subjects them to the physical changes caused by the female hormones used.

Some people have argued that, based on the 14th Amendment, the procedure fails to guarantee equal protection: although the laws mandating the treatment do so without respect to gender, the actual effect of the procedure disproportionately falls upon men. In the case of voluntary statutes, the ability to give informed consent is also an issue; in 1984, the U.S. state of Michigan's court of appeals held that mandating chemical castration as a condition of probation was unlawful on the grounds that the drug medroxyprogesterone acetate had not yet gained acceptance as being safe and reliable and also due to the difficulty of obtaining informed consent under these circumstances.

Sounds like it negatively impacts the health of the individual, and they are coerced into doing it (would you rather be stabbed to death in prison?). #StateTransgender

Florida charter boat captain accused of drinking, doing drugs, firing gun, threatening passengers

A Florida charter boat captain is accused of drinking heavily, doing drugs and threatening to shoot his passengers and throw them overboard before firing his gun several times from the top deck of the boat.

[...] All of the passengers and Kissell reported that Bailey drank several beers in the beginning of the trip, according to an arrest report. When Lopeparo asked his nephew, Rialmo Jr., to grab him a beer from the top deck where Bailey was, the captain told him he couldn't have it, but the teen thought he was kidding and grabbed the beer anyway.

At that point, "the captain bumped shoulders with the young man and grabbed him around the neck and clasped on to the young man’s chain and ripped it off," Giuffre told police. An argument ensued, but the captain retreated back to the upper deck to keep drinking. At this point, he was drinking Captain Morgan rum, smoking a joint and using cocaine, the passengers reported.

Later, the inebriated captain told Giuffre Jr., "It would be nothing to pop a bullet in each one of us and dump our bodies overboard," Giuffre Jr. wrote in his statement to police. "He also stated he has his buddies at the dock for us when we get back. He then proceeded to say he wanted to help to kill n------," Giuffre Jr. wrote. The police report said Giuffre Jr. and his fellow passengers were white.

All of the passengers reported that shortly after threatening them, Bailey fired between four and eight gunshots from the upper deck. At that point, the elder Giuffre said, Bailey was "drinking rum from the bottle" and "scaring the crap out of all of us."

The whole reason for his "tariff" bullshit is to manipulate the stock market. He even tweeted that his "position" is profitable. How could it not be?

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 4.7 GHz CPU Leaked, World’s First 16 Core Gaming Chip

It has the full 72 MB of cache.

I'll guess $700 for the price.

AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT ‘7nm Navi’ Graphics Card Final Specifications Leak Out – Features 2560 Cores, 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM and Up To 1905 MHz Clock Speeds

Apparently people want more than 8 GB of VRAM for 4K gaming.

Skip as many gens as you can!