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People Who Hate Cats Meet Kittens For The First Time

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Don’t let the cat out of the box.

BuzzFeed Video / Via youtu.be

People's opinions are often times VERY strong about cats. BuzzFeed Motion Pictures gathered a group of people that hate cats, and introduced them to some puuuur-fectly adorable kittens to see if their minds would change.

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People Guess The Original Names Of Popular Bands

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Some famous bands like Creed or Coldplay started their music careers with godawful band names. So we gathered some of our coworkers to guess which are the original band names.

BuzzFeed Blue / Via youtu.be

19 Signs You Need More Hot Guys In Your Life

Guy Annoys His Sister By Lip-Syncing An Entire 7-Hour Road Trip

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That’s some serious side eye.

The 911 dispatcher for the San Diego Fire Department filmed a time-lapse of sorts of their trip together, which was shared by the Huffington Post. He said in total he probably sang for about four hours.

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Haunting Photos Of Desolation And Devastation The Day After The Tianjin Explosions

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A massive series of explosions rocked the city of Tianjin, China, on Wednesday night, killing at least 50 and injuring hundreds. Local media reported that the blasts came from a warehouse storing “dangerous cargo.” All of the following images are from the Thursday morning after the disaster.

AFP / Getty Images/Greg Baker

AFP / Getty Images/Greg Baker

AFP / Getty Images/Greg Baker

AFP / Getty Images/Greg Baker


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The Geek Girl Struggle Is Real

Ellen DeGeneres Won A Teen Choice Award And Her Speech Will Make You Feel Things

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“I wanna say also it feels good to be chosen but there was a time in my life that I was not chosen.”

Ellen DeGeneres won the Choice Comedian Award Sunday night because well, duh, she's Ellen DeGeneres and America's National Treasure.

Ellen DeGeneres won the Choice Comedian Award Sunday night because well, duh, she's Ellen DeGeneres and America's National Treasure.

STOP BEING SO CUTE.

Fox

Of course, Ellen's speech was ON FIRE. She started out by saying there were "some hilarious people" in her category and then of course cracked a joke about that surfboard trophy.

Of course, Ellen's speech was ON FIRE. She started out by saying there were "some hilarious people" in her category and then of course cracked a joke about that surfboard trophy.

"And it's convenient, I was on my way to the beach, I had forgotten my surfboard so this will come in handy."

Fox

And the jokes kept rolling.

And the jokes kept rolling.

"They say teens make bad decisions but you made a very good decision tonight by choosing me. That was smart."

Fox

But Ellen also used her time to give everyone some pitch perfect words of wisdom saying, "wanna say also it feels good to be chosen but there was a time in my life that I was not chosen."

But Ellen also used her time to give everyone some pitch perfect words of wisdom saying, "wanna say also it feels good to be chosen but there was a time in my life that I was not chosen."

"I was the opposite of chosen because I was different, and I think I wanna make sure that everyone knows that what makes you different right now, makes you stand out later in life."

Fox


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California Isn't Actually In The Middle Of A Wildfire Apocalypse

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Flames from a backfire operation burn through a grove of trees as firefighters try to head off the Rocky fire on Aug. 3 near Clearlake, California.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — As wildfires raged last week, Gov. Jerry Brown stepped up to a microphone, declared that "California's burning," and said climate change was to blame.

“You can imagine, if the drought continues for a year or several years, California could literally burn up," Brown added.

Then Friday, President Obama jumped on the bandwagon, saying that fires in the western U.S. are escalating and attributed that escalation to global warming.

At a glance, it looks like Brown and Obama are right. Data shows that as of Aug. 8, 117,960 acres have burned on state-managed land in California. That's more than twice the average for this time of year and when non-state land is factored in the number of charred acres jumps to well over 200,000 acres.

Cal Fire firefighters watch a back burn near Clear Lake, California, on Aug. 2.

Josh Edelson / Getty Images

California's state firefighting agency, Cal Fire, agrees with Brown on the cause of the blazes.

"We attribute that to several things and the top being climate change," Cal Fire spokesperson Janet Upton told BuzzFeed News. She added that out of California's 20 largest fires since 1932, 12 have happened in just the last 13 years.

There's no doubt that California's fires are bad. However, a review of broader federal data shows that across the West the situation is not particularly unusual. In fact, certain fire-prone areas including California have actually had comparatively calm fire seasons so far in 2015.

The chart below shows the total number of acres burned in the U.S. through Aug. 11 of each year going back to 2005. This year, about 6.3 million acres have burned, which is a big jump from last year.

The total acres burned in the U.S. each year through Aug. 11.

BuzzFeed News / The Data Source


Compared to the past decade, however, this year's numbers look a lot more typical. Indeed, more than half of the last 10 years saw between 5 and 6 million acres burned by Aug. 11.

Moreover, about 85% of the acres burned this year in the U.S. have occurred in Alaska, which has seen a massive spike in fire activity. But due to their remote locations, the fires pose little threat to residents and are often allowed to burn.

BuzzFeed News / National Interagency Fire Center / Via nifc.gov

National fire data paints an even more tranquil picture. So far this year there have been 38,917 wildfires, according to National Interagency Fire Center data. That's a small increase over the last two years by this time, but it's also fewer fires than every single other year since 2005.

The total number of wildfires that have burned in the U.S. each year between Jan. 1 and Aug. 11.

BuzzFeed News/ National Interagency Fire Center / Via nifc.gov

Regional data further shows that as of Aug. 12 in fire-prone Southern California, the total number of blazes is just slightly above average and still within "normal."



National Interagency Fire Center / Via predictiveservices.nifc.gov

In the graph above, the blue line represents the total number of fires that have burned in 2015. The dotted line represents the 10-year average, while the gray area is what's considered "normal." The red and green regions represent above normal and below normal, respectively.

The number of acres burned so far in Southern California is actually below average.

National Interagency Fire Center / Via predictiveservices.nifc.gov

In Northern California — where a series of blazes have charred tens of thousands of acres in recent weeks — the situation is more dire. But only somewhat.

National Interagency Fire Center / Via predictiveservices.nifc.gov

The graph above shows that in Northern California, the number of fires has been slightly above normal for most of the year.

However, the number of acres burned, represented below, stayed slightly below average for much of the year, then spiked at the end of July.

National Interagency Fire Center / Via predictiveservices.nifc.gov

While this data does show that parts of California are burning, it reveals the West's fire situation is far less dire than elected officials have suggested.

"The Southwest has been fairly quiet. They didn’t really experience many fires this year"

In a conversation with BuzzFeed News, NIFC spokesperson Jessica Gardetto confirmed what the data seemed to be indicating: "We haven’t had that extreme of a fire season."

Up until recently, Gardetto explained, California specifically had been experiencing a calmer-than-normal fire season. Across the Southwest — which is experiencing a major drought — the number of fires and acres burned has remained below normal into the summer.

"The Southwest has been fairly quiet," she said. "They didn’t really experience many fires this year."

Asked if her organization attributed the current wildfire situation in the West to climate change, Gardetto said the issue is "still open to debate." Gardetto added that a growing El Niño, as well as fewer lightning strikes, have helped keep the number of fires down this year.

Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, told BuzzFeed News that climate change is a contributing factor to wildfires in the West, but not necessarily the biggest one.

"We want these forests to be 150 years old, but that’s not natural. And you’re setting yourself up for super fires."

"If I was to rank what's the biggest danger that we face from fires, I’d put people first, forest management second, and climate change third," Patzert said. "This Smokey the Bear bullshit where you put out every fire is not helpful."

The "Smokey the Bear" problem, as Patzert explained it, stems from the fact that forests are supposed to burn every 20 to 30 years. But when fires are extinguished via human intervention, fuel — in the form of dry brush and dead trees — turns into a massive tinderbox.

"We want these forests to be 150 years old, but that’s not natural," Patzert said. "And you’re setting yourself up for super-fires."

Patzert was not saying that climate change isn't a problem. Quite the opposite. But he was saying that huge blazes — and presumably the ones on the minds of political leaders who say that California could "literally" burn up — are as much the result of management decisions as they are of global warming.

Still, it sometimes seems like we're in the middle of a climate change-fueled wildfire apocalypse. One of the reasons for that might be because we're physically closer to the flames.

vine.co

All of the experts who spoke to BuzzFeed News pointed out that one of the major challenges with wildfires in the U.S. is ongoing development along the border between cities and the wilderness — a space called the wildland-urban interface. That means firefighters end up working to extinguish blazes that might otherwise have been benign or beneficial.

"You have all these areas that historically have always burned, but now we’re building in those areas."

"If you look at the West, more and more people are moving into these wild land urban interfaces," Gardetto, who is based in Idaho, said. "So that’s creating more of these extreme situations where you could potentially lose more homes. Statistically, it's going to increase the likelihood of losing houses."

Patzert said this is in large part the root of the Smokey the Bear problem, because firefighters end up spending time, resources, and sometimes lives trying to save buildings.

"You have all these areas that historically have always burned," he said, "but now we’re building in those areas."

And with more people and homes in fire zones, the threat increases regardless of the absolute magnitude of the blazes themselves.

A firefighter watches as flames approach Highway 20 during the Rocky fire near Clear Lake, California, on Aug. 2.

Josh Edelson / Getty Images


And while the wildfire activity is considered to be within the range of "normal" now, they're still quite severe.

"Starting with about the year 2000, we really started seeing these extreme fire seasons," Gardetto said. "Longer summers, higher temperatures, warmer winters in a lot of locations."

This is a longer-term trend — less "California is burning," and more "California (and more broadly the West) are generally becoming drier" — and it has an array of implications. Upton and Patzert both mentioned the cyclical problem of dying trees which then become fodder for wildfires. Letting forests freely burn also isn't a viable option, and not just because it would threaten homes.

"In 2013, the 257,000-acre Rim fire — the largest ever in the Sierra Nevada — released an estimated 11 million metric tons of greenhouse gases," Nancy Volger, of the California Natural Resources Agency, told BuzzFeed News in an email. "That’s roughly equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 2.3 million cars."

Still, the data shows that while fire is prevalent — and perhaps more so than people in the West would like — it's not necessarily on the verge of "literally" burning up the entire region.

"The world is warming, the world is melting, sea level is rising," Patzert said. "But don’t blame everything on climate change."

LINK: El Niño Came For Texas, And It May Be Coming For California, Too

LINK: California’s Extreme Drought Is Fueling Bigger, More Costly Wildfires

LINK: California Community Running Out Of Water Could Go “Over The Edge”


Are You More Fifth Harmony Or Little Mix?

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♫ Everyday is payday ‘cause these wings were made to flyyyy ♫

Girls Talk About Guys’ Dating Profiles

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Sometimes we need a little advice from the opposite sex.

BuzzFeed Yellow / Via youtu.be

Jimmy Barnes And His Family Narrowly Escape Bangkok Bombings

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“A bomb or something has exploded in Bangkok, very close to us!”

At least 19 are reportedly dead after a bombing in central Bangkok overnight.

At least 19 are reportedly dead after a bombing in central Bangkok overnight.

More than 120 people were left injured, police say, with the blast going off near the five-star Grand Hyatt Erawan in the Thai capital.

Pornchai Kittiwongsakul / AFP / Getty Images


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Can You Have Your Aura Read?

Can We Guess Your Taste In Men Based On Your Taste In Potatoes?

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We know what kind of guy you find ~apeeling~.

So Yeah, You Should Probably Have An Earthquake Kit

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Here’s how to pack everything you need in case of emergency.

Monday morning, around 6:49 a.m., San Francisco was hit with a magnitude 4.0 earthquake.

vine.co

According to the most recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey, nearly half of Americans live in earthquake-prone areas. As such, those people should be reasonably prepared for emergencies.

"We have known about this overall risk for a long time," David Oglesby, professor of geophysics at the University of California, Riverside, told BuzzFeed. "Therefore, every family in California, Oregon, Washington, and even Nevada should have an earthquake kit handy, and it wouldn't hurt for everyone in the country to have one. After all, the kinds of supplies you would need after an earthquake are essentially the same as those you would need in any other natural disaster, like a hurricane, flood, and so forth."

Here are the essentials you'll need:

Here are the essentials you'll need:

BuzzFeed / Thinkstock / Michelle Rial


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The Original Churro Ice Cream Sandwich

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“It balances and pairs really well with ice cream”

BuzzFeed Video / Via youtu.be


Are You More Ashlee Or Jessica Simpson?

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Every ’00s girl knows you can only be one.

Evan Agostini / Carlo Allegri / Getty Images

Edmonton Has Blessed Us With The Most Ridiculous Ad For Public Transit

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For the buscurious.

If there's one thing Edmonton has a knack for its turning seemingly mundane things into the time of your life. Like that giant mall, for example.

instagram.com

Or the unparalleled joy of getting on a municipal public bus.

Or the unparalleled joy of getting on a municipal public bus.

City of Edmonton / Via youtu.be

A video from the City of Edmonton wants to know if you're ❄️? COOL?❄️ enough to ride the bus.

Surely there are few in this world worthy of such prestige, but nonetheless the video goes on to espouse the fleet's remarkable amenities.

Like "personal climate control."

Like "personal climate control."

City of Edmonton / Via youtu.be


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19 Things Summer Goths Know All Too Well

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It’s a cruel, cruel summer.

Wearing a lot of black, sleeveless clothes means deodorant streaks are a summer goth's natural enemy.

Wearing a lot of black, sleeveless clothes means deodorant streaks are a summer goth's natural enemy.

reddit.com

People constantly ask you whether you're hot.

Like, figuratively hot? Always.

Getting sunscreen under your perfectly-manicured nails is a total pain.

Worth it for nails like these, though. ?

instagram.com

People are always joking about how goths avoid the beach.

Which is silly. What other group owns as many parasols, cute sunglasses, and killer black bathing suits?

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How Do You Pronounce These Chat Acronyms?

3 Tricks For Cooling Down Your Hot Car

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