Women run the literary world, obviously.
Which Female Literary Character Are You?
↧
↧
27 Times Coach From "New Girl" Was Super Relatable
Because there is only one character who truly understands you on New Girl.
When you watch Cake Boss and you've become overly confident that you've picked up a few things after watching a few episodes:
Fox
When you hear someone say "pianist", but you actually hear the word "penis":
Fox
When you bring your dusty but trusty N64 to game night:
Fox
When you strike up a conversation with a teenager, thinking that you have a firm grasp of today's slang:
Fox
↧
Pope Compares Transgender People To Nuclear Weapons
His comments appear to contradict the Holy See’s gesture of welcome to an LGBT Catholic group at the Vatican this week.
Pope Francis walks as he arrives to lead the weekly audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican, Feb. 18.
Giampiero Sposito / Reuters
Recently published remarks by Pope Francis comparing arguments for trans rights to nuclear weapons are the latest in a series of mixed messages the pontiff appears to be sending to LGBT rights supporters.
"Let's think of the nuclear arms, of the possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings," Francis is quoted as saying in a book first published in Italy in January but that caught the attention of the English-language media over the last week. "Let's think also of genetic manipulation, of the manipulation of life, or of the gender theory, that does not recognize the order of creation … With this attitude, man commits a new sin, that against God the Creator."
LGBT rights supporters regard such comments as a betrayal of the pope's statements suggesting he wants the church to reconcile with LGBT people. They come just as the pope has received widely published praise by an American LGBT group, which this Wednesday was the first LGBT-rights organization ever invited to sit alongside Francis during his weekly general audience in the Vatican.
But the leader of the organization, New Ways Ministries' Executive Director Francis DeBernardo, said the episode shows the church's growth on LGBT issues is not as simple as many LGBT rights supporters want it to be. Those hoping the pope will reverse long-standing Catholic teaching on questions like marriage are never going to be satisfied by this pope, DeBernardo said — but it's a mistake to measure the pope by whether he reverses church doctrine.
"I honestly don't think he's going to be the pope that brings the changes or makes the changes that we want to see happen," DeBernardo said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. "I don't think he's going to be the one to do that, but what he has done through gestures like this and other things that he's said, is that he's opened the discussion on LGBT issues and stretched out a hand to LGBT people. These are steps the Vatican should've done decades ago before Pope Francis, but he's the one who finally has the courage to take those initial steps."
New Ways Ministry is a 38-year-old organization that describes itself as "a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Catholics." On Wednesday, they were given VIP tickets to attend Pope Francis's weekly public audience in the Vatican, in which the pontiff greets tens of thousands who gather in St. Peter's Square and leads a short service. The premium tickets meant the group sat near the pope on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica, an honor typically reserved for visiting dignitaries.
DeBernardo said his group of 50 "LGBT pilgrims and their supporters" were deeply touched by their special invitation to the general audience.
"Some people were in tears when they were out there," he said. "They [came to Rome] because they wanted to reconnect with their Catholicism."
But the Vatican did not acknowledge them as a delegation supporting LGBT-rights, identifying them in an official list of participants only as a "group of lay people accompanied by a sister," referring to the nun who helped start the organization, Sister Jeannine Gramick. This was a marked contrast to the pontiff's greeting to a delegation from Slovakia that attended a Feb. 4 audience, just before their country was to vote on a referendum" to deny marriage and adoption rights to same sex couples. He encouraged the Slovakian pilgrims "to continue their efforts in defense of the family, the vital cell of society." (Despite this endorsement, the Slovak referendum failed to pass because of low turnout.)
The VIP tickets to the general audience were also far less than what the group had asked for — they had requested a private meeting with the pope. So it's a reflection of just how marginalized LGBT Catholics have felt for the past several decades that just the chance to sit on the dias without being recognized brought tears to their eyes. In fact, said DeBernardo, even though their request for a private audience was denied, they were pleased just to have the request acknowledged with the VIP tickets, which they were offered by a letter signed by an important church figure, Georg Gänswein, who holds the title of Head of the Papal Household.
"[Because] we've just been ignored by the Vatican, the fact that he did respond and responded in a positive way is wonderful," said DeBernardo.
He considered this a huge step forward from the response they received when they made the same request to two of Francis' predecessors, Popes Benedict and John Paul II.
"Over the past 18 years ... we've come once or twice, [and] both times we had contacted the Vatican," DeBernardo said. "We were just basically ignored — we never heard a response."
They also secured their tickets with help from some quarters that LGBT activists would find surprising. DeBernardo said that Gramik asked that their request be forwarded to the Vatican by the Holy See's representative to the United States and the San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. LGBT-rights activists regard Cordileone as one of their most vocal opponents in the American church leadership. He is currently the target of protests because he wants to include a "morals clause" into the contract of teachers in Catholic schools under his control that would prohibit them from expressing support for LGBT rights. (The San Francisco Archdiocese did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment for this story.)
"I think Pope Francis … is a complicated person and his strategy is complicated," DeBernardo said. "We're not trying to gloss over the fact that he is not where we want him to be [but] we're grateful for what he's done. … We're still going to keep challenging him and the Vatican on the areas where they need to develop their thinking."
But, he said, "we were really very pleased" by the audience.
↧
14 Insane Cover Songs That Might Just Be Better Than The Original
Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?
"Skinny Love," Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran can do nothing wrong.
"Riptide," Taylor Swift
Just be glad that Taylor Swift and Vance Joy are going on tour together.
"Forever," James Bay
On repeat for days...
"Jolene," Miley Cyrus
An oldie, but always SO good.
↧
Which Character From "American Beauty" Are You?
There’s nothing worse in life than being ordinary.
Dreamworks SKG
↧
↧
17 Reasons Pigeons Are The Absolute Worst
The worst, I tell ya!
They strut out into a scenario.
instagram.com / Via Instagram
And it can be uncomfortable.
instagram.com / Via Instagram
They will create a witty scenario in which they look like they are in a picture frame.
(But the bird is not actually in a picture frame.)
instagram.com / Via Instagram
They will wear a food item as a necklace.
And it looks so avant garde.
instagram.com / Via Instagram
↧
Which Member Of Taylor Swift's Friend Group Are You?
Find out which T-Swizz BFF is your kindred spirit!
↧
14 Lisa Frank Emojis You'll Wish Were Real
Sparkly rainbow poop. Yeah, you know it!
Dancing Bunnies With Ears:
Crystal Ro / BuzzFeed / Via Facebook: LisaFrankOnline
Rainbow Nail Polish:
Crystal Ro / BuzzFeed
Pink Kitty With No Good Gesture:
Crystal Ro / BuzzFeed / Via Facebook: LisaFrankOnline
Information Desk Pink Kitty:
Crystal Ro / BuzzFeed / Via Facebook: LisaFrankOnline
↧
Mark Cuban Picks A Fight With Preet Bharara Over Insider Trading
The billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner filed a lengthy brief in a federal court case involving two men accused of insider trading. He says the intervention is about rejecting the government’s “gotcha” tactics.
Jose Luis Villegas/Sacramento Bee/TNS
Mark Cuban, billionaire, loudmouth, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, loves a good fight, whether the beef be with NBA referees, Donald Trump, or the Federal Communications Commission. And this week he managed to insert himself into a new dispute, this time between U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and two men he accuses of insider trading.
Cuban, stepping in on behalf of the accused, delivered a lengthy written sermon arguing against what he sees as intrusive and damaging government oversight of financial markets. In a filing Thursday, Cuban's attorney submitted an amicus brief in the ongoing court fight between Bharara and two former hedge funders, whose insider trading convictions were vacated following a court ruling that could potentially redefine insider trading law.
"In an attempt to effect yet another expansion of insider trading proscriptions – this time to cover remote (by several layers) tippees – the Government in this case has misread and cherry-picked favorable dicta from prior cases to claim that mere friendship is sufficient to turn a perfectly legal transaction into criminal insider trading," the brief says.
The filing describes Cuban as "a successful businessman, an investor, the owner of several business ventures, including the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, and one of the stars of the popular television show Shark Tank." The brief dwells on what Cuban sees as his own experience with unjust, overreaching authorities: a six-year court fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission over Cuban's sale of stock in a startup technology company he invested in.
Cuban declined to settle the case (or as his lawyers put it, "Mr. Cuban chose to defend himself against the SEC's baseless charges rather than cave into its demands to settle") and ended up spending "multiples" of the proposed $2 million worth of fines to fight the case in court. Ultimately, in the words of his lawyers, Cuban got "full vindication" after being cleared last year.
Cuban's interest in the current case, the brief says, is altruistic. He is a successful businessman who was turned into a billionaire by America's vibrant capital markets (Yahoo bought Cuban's Broadcast.com for $5 billion worth of Yahoo stock 1999).
"Mr. Cuban considers himself fortunate to have had the wherewithal to defend himself...He recognizes, however, that not everyone is able to take that route...For that reason, Mr. Cuban has a keen interest in expressing his views on this important issue and endorsing this Court's rejection of the Government's 'gotcha' tactics."
In December, an appeals panel for the Second Circuit threw out the insider trading conviction of two hedge hedge funders, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, after it ruled that in both cases, prosecutors couldn't meet a crucial criteria for proving that trading based on nonpublic information is illegal: that the person making the trade got the nonpublic information from someone in exchange for a "personal benefit."
Newman and Chiasson, the prosecutors argued, were at the end of a chain of tips regarding upcoming earnings announcements from Dell and NVIDIA. The appeals court said they were "several steps removed from the corporate insiders and there was no evidence that either was aware of the source of the inside information" and that the prosecutors case was based on a "doctrinal novelty."
Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, challenged the appeals court's ruling and asked for a hearing before the entire appeals court, not just the three-judge panel. Bharara argued in the filling that the appeals panel's stricter standard for showing there was a "personal benefit" to the people passing out information "will dramatically limit the Government's ability to prosecute some of the most common, culpable, and market-threatening forms of insider trading."
The panel's ruling has already started to have an effect on other insider trading cases — last month, prosecutors dropped charges against a group of people accused of insider trading in IBM stock.
The two men whose convictions were vacated in December, Chiasson and Newman, saw their respective hedge funds (Level Global and Daimond) shut down following FBI raids of their offices. Their reputations were severely damaged even before they were convicted, fined, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Cuban too saw his reputation dinged by what he sees as unclear insider trading laws, living "under the bright light of the SEC's allegations while the case was pending," according to the brief. "For example, he was jeered when attending Dallas Mavericks games by chants of 'insider trading.'"
Cuban's brief argues that Congress should more clearly define criminal insider trading: "No one should be prosecuted for conduct that Congress is either unwilling or unable to define... there is a patchwork of judicial decisions cobbling together, on a case-by-case basis, what conduct gives rise to liability."
Chiasson's attorneys also filed a brief, one far more pointed and personal than Cuban's. "The government's rehearing petition echoes Chicken Little's complaint, though its tone is less that of a frightened hen and more that of a petulant rooster whose dominion has been disturbed."
Mark Cuban's brief
Prosecutors' request for a rehearing
↧
↧
11 Reasons You Should Be Watching "Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club"
A very serious reminder of what this anime is really about.
Anatomically correct deltoids.
Don't worry it's purely educational.
Kyoto Animation
Great Camera Work.
That angle is juuuust right.
Kyoto Animation
Proper Cooking Etiquette.
You don't need a shirt to cook right?
Kyoto Animation
Swimming Suit Fashion.
We're not looking anywhere but the Speedo, of course.
Kyoto Animation
↧
Greece Reaches Temporary Debt Deal With Eurozone Creditors
The 11th-hour agreement will prevent Greece from having to abandon the eurozone. But it is also likely to be politically costly for the country’s newly elected anti-austerity government.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addresses lawmakers of his leftist Syriza party in the parliament Feb. 17.
Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters
The deal was reached during a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels. It will give Greece four months of relief from the $272 billion bailout it has needed to stay afloat since the financial crisis of 2008.
The agreement still needs to be ratified by the parliaments of the creditors, but it ended concerns that Greece might be forced to abandon the euro on Feb. 28, when the bailout was originally set to expire.
Greece has been mired in a huge economic crisis for the past five years, with its economy shrinking by almost a third. Its government has needed large loans from other nations in the eurozone — particularly Germany — just to stay afloat.
But those loans have come with strings attached that have proven unpopular among Greeks. The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, collectively know as the troika, have demanded that Greece implement austerity measures in exchange for the loans.
The measures have included mass layoffs of government employees and a significant reduction in public services.
Friday's relief will require the new government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipiras and his far-left Syriza party to submit a letter detailing the measures it plans to take to ensure that the country meets the creditor's demands.
That forced walk-down from electoral promises to put an end to austerity measures will likely put Tsipiras in a politically tough spot with supporters back home.
LINK: Greece’s Economy Is Screwed And Nobody Can Agree On How To Save It
↧
11 Other Parts Of Modern Society That Tina Belcher Would Improve
Sleater-Kinney’s new music video is just the beginning. Soon we will all be offering our butts and erotic fanfictions to our new overlord.
If you haven't yet seen Sleater-Kinney's new music video "A New Wave",what are you doing here? Go! Run! By god, man, time is short -- you need this video to live! If you have seen the video, then I hardly need to tell you: it's definitive proof that Tina Belcher makes good things great, great things extraordinary, and extraordinary things butts. Because -- in the words of Tina herself -- BUTTS.
Fox
The DMV
Well, OK, so maybe it is the worst place on earth. But hey, at least you have your girl with you to help you perfect the signature Tina gron!
Fox / Via annagabrielled.tumblr.com
A Fist Fight
OK, so hopefully you're not finding yourself in brawls very often, but if you need backup, Tina's one good girl to have in your corner. Her and her 15 zombie boyfriends.
Fox / Via burgertv.tumblr.com
The Amusement Park
If you're thinking, "But amusement parks are already fun? How could anything make them more fun?" then I invite you to look at the above GIF. That's right. Just look at it.
Fox / Via tvgrrrl.tumblr.com
↧
24 Signs You're Actually Bobby From "Supernatural"
Idjits, jackasses, and balls.
You take being blunt to a whole new level.
cwtv.com / Via heroscafe.tumblr.com
And shamelessly wear emotions on your sleeve.
cwtv.com / Via spnwriting.tumblr.com
Because you DGAF about any "doctor's orders."
cwtv.com / Via pahakarma.tumblr.com
Are your friends being complete morons?
cwtv.com / Via hangofthursdays.tumblr.com
↧
↧
What Song Should You Play On Repeat This Weekend?
Let’s get this party started!
↧
15 Things I Learned About How To Survive The Cold Thanks To The Russian Winter
Cheers.
It's common knowledge that Russia gets really cold in the winter — in parts of the country, it plunges down to -50 Celsius. -30 Celsius isn't even a big deal. So there are things you learn to survive.
Igor Sokalski/Igor Sokalski
Top of the list: Hats and hoods are important. Most of your heat escapes through your head. This is truth. Cover your head.
Parkwood Entertainment
Layering is also important. Shirts under sweaters. Tights under jeans. Do it.
What also helps is vodka.
↧
Which "Rugrats" Character Should You Babysit?
“I don’t have that much time, Angelica. I have to take my afternoon nap.”
↧
You Won't Be Prepared For How Hot Stephen Colbert Looks With His "Colbeard"
↧
↧
Paul Thomas Anders Rips Into American Airlines During Awards
The director of Inherent Vice was accepting the Robert Altman Award when he suddenly told the audience, “They will fucking lose your luggage.”
Director Paul Thomas Anderson, center at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday.
Chris Pizzello / AP
Paul Thomas Anderson took a sudden jab at American Airlines during the Independent Spirit Awards Saturday, warning the audience, "Don't fly American Airlines."
"They will fucking lose your luggage," he said before walking off the stage.
The crowd gasped and laughed at what seemed like an awkward moment during the award show, according to a BuzzFeed News reporter in the audience, since American Airlines is one of the premier sponsors for the Indie Spirit Awards.
↧
21 Vines Guaranteed To Make You Laugh Every Time
“Look at all those chickens!”
This impeccable scream-fart.
Submitted by Hannah Kara (Facebook).
Yaaass!
Submitted by MIranda Carini (Facebook).
↧
25 WTF Disney Moments That Will Ruin Your Childhood
So. many. boners.
Jaq "stacking" the necklace beads on Gus Gus' tail.
Submitted by Spencer Althouse.
Walt Disney Pictures / Via pinterest.com
Buzz Lightyear getting a "wing boner" when Jessie opens Andy's bedroom door by herself.
Submitted by Dany Chan (Facebook)
Walt Disney Pictures / Via youtube.com
Aladdin finding himself stuck in a brothel.
Submitted by Camey Metcalfe (Facebook)
Walt Disney Pictures / Via needdisney.tumblr.com
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
