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Melania Trump speech appears to plagiarize Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic convention address

Watch Melania Trump Plagiarize Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic Convention Speech

Pakistani QT killed by brother for what would be usual vanity stuff for Westerners on social media:

Qandeel Baloch: Pakistani social media star strangled by her brother

Qandeel Baloch, one of Pakistan's most famous and controversial social media stars, has been strangled to death in what police are calling a case of so called "honor" killing in the city of Multan in the country's province of Punjab. Azhar Akram, Multan's chief police officer, told CNN that Baloch was killed by her brother in her family's home after he had protested at the "kind of pictures she had been posting online."

[...] She had nearly 750,000 followers on Facebook, where her videos went viral but were also the subject of much debate and discomfort. In recent weeks, several of her posts encouraged her audience to challenge old practices of Pakistani society. In a July 14 post, Baloch referred to herself as a "modern day feminist."
Hamna Zubair, the culture editor of Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told CNN that she had received much criticism for carrying pieces on Baloch. One commentator asked her if she would be "reporting from a brothel" next.
Baloch tightly controlled her narrative in the media. She shared little about her personal life and was something of an enigma; nobody really knew which city she was based in.

She found fame and slipped into the national consciousness after declaring that she would perform a live strip tease online if Pakistan won a cricket match against arch rival India.
As her media profile grew, Zubair said Baloch became aware "of her power to deliver a certain message about being female in Pakistan," and that she had become a "burgeoning activist for increasing women's visibility" in the country. She made more headlines after posting selfies on her Instagram account with Mufti Abdul Qavi, a senior member of the clergy. The bizarre pairing led to frenzied media coverage and resulted in Qavis's suspension from his post on one of Pakistan's religious committees. After news of Baloch's death, while waiting to go on air on a local channel, Qavi told CNN that "her death should be a lesson for all those who point fingers at someone's honor."

[...] A couple of days ago, local media reported that Qandeel Baloch had married at 17 and left her husband about a year later. After the reports were published, she confirmed that her legal name was Fouzia Azeem and that she had been using an alias for safety reasons. Earlier this week Baloch had stirred up more controversy by releasing a kitschy music video on YouTube called "Ban," which mocked some of the restrictions that she had been subjected to. Behind the scenes, however, things were a bit different. Hassan Chaoudhry, a reporter for local paper Express Tribune, told CNN he had spoken to Baloch on the phone just two days ago, saying she was sobbing and "feared for her life." On the morning she was murdered, Qandeel had shared a picture of herself staring defiantly into the camera, wearing a pair of leopard print pants and a black tank top. She had written that she was a fighter. "I will bounce back," she said, adding she wanted to inspire women who have been "treated badly and dominated by society."

This is a story that can only be found on NextBigFuture and wire services:

Super controversial Brilliant light Power aka blacklight power claims to be generating bursts of megawatt power and claim independent validation

Wikipedia article.

Hells yeah. Anybody beat that w/ their daily driver?

Chris Evans has announced he is leaving his role as a presenter on BBC Two's Top Gear after one series.

He tweeted: "Stepping down from Top Gear. Gave it my best shot but sometimes that's not enough.

"I feel like my standing aside is the single best thing I can now do to help the cause."

His resignation comes after falling ratings for the show - which hit a series low on Sunday night, with an average of 1.9 million viewers.

Source: BBC

It is just over a year since Evans was given the job of reinventing Top Gear for the post-Clarkson era, an appointment that was controversial from the start after he had repeatedly denied he had been approached to host the show.

The then BBC2 controller, Kim Shillinglaw, said Evans’s “knowledge of and passion for cars are well-known and combined with his sheer inventiveness and cheeky unpredictability he is the perfect choice to take our much-loved show into the future”. But Shillinglaw lost her BBC2 job before the show went on air, one of a string of senior departures to hit the show, also including that of its executive producer Lisa Clark.

Source: The Guardian

http://www.vice.com/read/oakland-underage-sex-work-scandal

Not so long ago it was possible to point to Oakland as a police reform success story. In the last decade, the cops have gone from conducting an average of 3,000 searches without probable cause every year to 280 in 2015. Officers are now required to wear body cameras. After decades of abuse, violence, and corruption, the police department seemed to finally be changing.

In the last few weeks, though, a scandal has emerged that threatens to tear the department apart. In brief, 14 Oakland police officers are currently under investigation for sleeping with an 18-year-old sex worker—three of them when she was 17, thus allegedly committing rape and sex trafficking under California law. The woman, using the alias Celeste Guap, told the East Bay Express earlier this month that she was having sex with the cops for money and protection; she had been given a friend's arrest history and information about undercover prostitution stings.

Hints of the scandal surfaced last year, after a suicide note written one of the officers involved, Brendan O'Brien, mentioned Guap, prompting an investigation. But the higher-ups allegedly dragged their feet, and the supposed cover-up has only widened the sordid scandal has since expanded. (According to Guap's later comments to the media, she's actually had sex with "more than 30 officers" from multiple agencies around the Bay Area.)

The shocking and salacious events were the catalyst to Oakland appointing four police chiefs in two weeks. Initially, Sean Whent, who was promoted to top cop at the end of a similarly messy 2013 shuffle that saw three new police chiefs in three days, got canned because he allegedly knew about Guap sleeping with Oakland cops but didn't press for a speedy and public investigation.

As you may have heard, West Virginia had some terrible weather this past week. The death toll is in the mid 20's as many areas experienced torrential rains and high water, including an 8 year-old Wheeling boy who drowned when he slipped and fell into a raging creek.

I'll be praying that the grieving have perseverance, the emergency and rescue workers have fortitude, and those who will return to nothing where their everything used to be have courage.

A funny article I found on NBF:

Do not "blame" life extension for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, If Murdoch died Fox would still be right wing

Which is a response to: Bonus Level: The World's Most Powerful Humans are Getting Another 10-15 Years on Earth

A common argument against life extension is that it would allow the elites to live indefinitely, accruing more power, wealth, and influence for themselves. To that I say: If you're so worried about it, stop waiting for them to die, and start killing them.

The past 6 weeks or so has been great for hockey if you live in or near the Pittsburgh area. Not only did the Penguins just win their 4th Stanley Cup, but their A affiliate farm team, the Wilkes-Barry Baby Pens went deep in the playoffs, and my hometown Wheeling Nailers, the Pen's AA affiliate, made it to the Kelly Cup finals (even though they did lose to the defending champs).

Hockey is a pretty brutal sport. Not only is fighting allowed (to a point), it's used as a tool to keep the game from getting out of hand. Think about it - the speed, confinement of boards and glass, and the fact that it's played on ice make it very easy to purposely injure another player. Fighting reminds players who take too many liberties that there's a price to pay for going too far.

Off the ice, however, the players are among the classiest in professional sports. It isn't unusual to watch a press conference and hear players answer questions in more than one language. A leader like Sidney Crosby will never badmouth other players or the coaches. Compare that to other sports where you can easily see the players/coaches have a huge chip on their shoulders about whatever is bothering them, and I sometimes struggle to understand what they're saying even though English is their primary language.

On Monday, the day after winning the Stanley Cup, Phil Kessel, the leading playoff goal scorer for the Pens, took out a full page ad in the Toronto Star thanking the fans for running him out of town last year. He said otherwise, he never would have had an opportunity to play for a team that knows what the hell they're doing.

Kessel also donated $50,000 to a Toronto hot-dog vendor he frequented when he was on the Maple Leafs. Classy.

Alabama ACLU and Newspaper Criticize Police for Arresting Citizen Journalist by Bama Camera

The Alabama police department that had a man arrested on a felony charge of jamming up their emergency lines – even though he did not make a single call – is now taking heat from the local ACLU as well as the local newspaper.

But the Wetumpka Police Department is still sticking to its guns, threatening to arrest anybody else who posts their non-emergency phone number of (334) 567-5321.

They claim that by calling that number, it somehow leads turns into a 911 call, which they claim makes it difficult to respond to actual emergencies.

But all they were doing were exercising their First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances by complaining about how officers ripped a camera out of Keith Golden’s hands for recording the police department from public property.

First Amendment Audit (Wetumpka PD) "I don't care about your 1st Amendment Rights"

Arrest Update by Bama Camera
**UPDATE**FPS-USMS-BAM CAMERA by News Now Houston