assault

Evidence of 9,000-year-old stone houses found on Australian island.
 

Kirsten Dunst is MJ. You are all mad.

I thought putting that in the headline would have been redundant.
 
 
 
Reddit.

Incidentally, Indiewire's scathing review of Suicide Squad included the following note"
 
And all I could think of was "Well, at least they got one thing faithful to the comics..."

Really, though? I get that you are sincere in your heavy dislike of Trump. I get your fears for what such a presidency would mean. But is it really that different? Not just the people running but in the rhetoric surrounding them and the people pushing for votes.
 
To me this seems all too familiar with 4, 8, and 12 years ago. Each of the two main sides have taken to demonizing each other; exclaiming how the US would be set off to a terrible place if the other one won. If Gov. Romney won, Obamacare would be finished and countless millions would die. If President Obama won again, it would spell the end to the second amendment and a possible heralding of invasive government control (actually that last part isn't that far off given our intel agencies). Senator Obama was a radical leftist that would nationalize the banks and destroy free enterprise. Senator McCain would leave millions on the cold streets and bring us to the brink of WWIII; a fate we somehow just barely avoided despite re-electing President Bush. Every cycle brings out new versions of the same dire rhetoric.
 
Ultimately the two main sides need to earn our votes. Their inability to do so is not the fault of third parties. Gov. Johnson nor Dr. Stein get a say in the leadership or marketing of the Dems nor Repubs. When one's supermarket fails blaming the market down the street for being too competitive isn't a solution - it's part of the problem.
 
Soar.

Let me explain: "America" is the most awesomest scripted drama television show ever created for the Canadian market. (The producers also export it to Europe, Africa and Asia, where it does amazingly well, considering the language barriers.)
 
To support this show, entrepeneurs have built "Americaland" theme parks with duty free shopping at all major Canadian border crossings,further monetising this entertainment experience, which soon spread to newspapers, magazines, comic books, and even the mass book market. 
 
However, the initial "slice of life" broadcasting, such as Leave it to Beaver, The Nightly News, televised high school football (What? I mean, seriously?) and Cal Worthington used car commercials began to pall in, I want to say, the 1960s, and the producers moved on to an "event" format, with "Presidential elections" the fall after the Olympics --I think? Every four years, anyway. 
 
"Presidential elections" featured life-and-death struggles between larger-than-life characters running for "President of the United States," or, possibly, "King of the World." (The writers often blurred the distinction.) As with the Olympics, their popularity soon overwhelmed the original, occasional-event format, and events were spread into the previous year. An alternative, rival concept, the "Off year election," was also successful, because while the stakes were smaller, the personalities were even more outrageous. For example, the comic geniusses who invented "Tip O'Neill" and "Newt Gingrich" got the Nobel Prize for Literature, for example. I think? I don't pay much attention to that stuff. Anyway, they should have. 
 
Eventually, however, the producers got greedy, and began to try the madcap, cast-of-thousands format of "Off year elections" with the high stakes and larger-than-life personalities of "Presidential elections." The critics are, understandably, divided about this. Some see it as the culmination of two generations of first-class entertainment, and look forward to a sequel, perhaps a remake of The Day AFter, or Terminator. Others think that increasing inputs will just lead to declining returns, and that America will soon be cancelled. 
 
We'll see! One thing is for sure, and that is that it'll make for some fun television. (Of course, for the poor, delusional crackpots who think that it is real, it's a world-historical tragedy unfolding in real time, but that's why they should be taking their meds!)

I'm STILL thrilled that we know of exactly one species that sent a flying saucer to another planet to disgorge a nuclear-powered robot to drive around shooting lasers at things . . . and it was us.

Write plays.

Are there "red" and "blue" elevators as well?  It would make more sense in that context.
 
I remember a comedy sketch many years ago, where a black man had been hired to work at an office in Alabama, the first black person to work in that office.  He's feeling very pleased with himself--and then he turns a corner and sees two signs--"WHITE ONLY" and "COLORED ONLY."  He stares at the signs with mounting disbelief and apprehension, and then a woman brushes past him and drops an armload of scrap paper into one of two plastic bins.  The man's apprehension drops as he realizes the signs refer to white and colored paper being separated--or perhaps, segregated--for recycling purposes.
 
Of course, there are plenty of other colors the RNC could use to designate elevators.  They could, in fact, use every color in the rainbow--
 
"See?  We know how to be inclusive!  We're using rainbows, just like all the gay people like!  We're being inclusive and friendly!"
 
And I am Marie of Romania.

To be fair, reality frequently forgets that it is not Satire.

Canadian Axe-Throwing League Seeks License to Sell Booze
 

Well Jobson Growth didn't do as well as expected , but Cliff Hanger looks to be doing well !

Polling booths on the east coast of Australia have closed. The count has started. The result will be pretty obvious in an hour or two.
 
Facebook is going mad with Australians making jokes about sausages.

Cleverman

Canada Envy strikes hundreds of Americans every year, and goes up to the thousands  during election cycles. Currently, there is no cure for Canada envy though frequent visits to the Yukon during Winter have been known to suppress symptoms as do reminders that Justin Beiber is from there. Project "No Maple Leaf 4 U!" is a non profit charity trying to help Americans come to grips with the fact that while they may envy Canada, they are very unlikely to get to gain citizenship; whether due to age, lack of needed job skills, or inability to list more than three hockey teams. We help any American we can cope with the ugly facts that if they're being screwed by their country, they're probably not rich enough to escape it.
 
Please donate to our cause.

That's a clickbait dream site that is. 

It is perfectly within the system to fight it out to the last ballot and to try to convince the super-delagates to switch sides based on better polling numbers against the eventual rival. That the odds are very strongly against that happening is a separate consideration and the Hillary supporters who are trying to shame him into quitting on their terms are, quite frankly, being undemocratic because they don't like that the system hasn't silenced their opposition (yet).
 
As for the runner-up endorsing the winner: it may be tradition and good politics, but I see absolutely zero moral value in the act. Nor do I see nominations as being of any value whatsoever if they are made pro-forma and only because its expected. If a runner-up were to refuse to endorse the winner because they believed they are a sad-sack candidate and a poor choice for president, I wouldn't shed a single tear over it. 
 
I am sure, should Bernie lose (which I believe is likely), that he will endorse Hillary on the grounds that she is not Trump. He's said he thinks she has the intelligence and competence to do the job. That does not, however, obligate his followers to vote for her in any way shape or form. Its not incumbent on Bernie to convince his followers to vote for Hillary. In the absence of substantive policy overtures on her part, I see that as pure nonsense.
 
Its 100% on Clinton's shoulders to convince us to vote for her. If she can't, then she deserves to lose.
 
Four years is not an eternity.

Nile crocodiles in south Florida
 
From a different source: "Much of the hunting of and general animosity towards Nile crocodiles stems from their reputation as a man-eater, which is not entirely unjustified."

I'm sorry to return to this, because it looks like I'm taking issue with Sinanju, whereas in fact you will notice that I have clipped his hopeful codicil. What I want to say is that I've read these guys, too. Or to put it another way, We know these Papenheimers.
 
I'm returning to it, above all, because there's also a substantive issue. It has been very convincingly argued that this age of secular stagnation we live in (also known as: the reason you haven't had a real raise in thirty years) is due to a shortage of public debt. As incomprehensible as it may seem to people raised on a steady diet of deficit scolding, the amount of public debt around the world has been shrinking for years. The only reason America is an exception is that you've cut your tax rates so far. (Leaving the argument about whether that was a good idea or not aside.) So this pose of world-weary, cynical wisdom grounded in historical knowledge is dangerous to the public weal, even before you tancy that you see seven flavours of awfulness in it from the pens of Jerry Pournelle, Heinlein and H. Beam Piper. 
 
Because it's a terrible argument. It's wrong everywhere! It's actually not even just wrong. It's like anti-truth! It's like someone taking you aside and telling you, "Hey, kid, you're young and I'm wise and old, and I know science. Trust me, the Moon is made of green cheese." Almost literally so.
 
i) Two hundred years? There are precious few regimes that last two centuries. Dynasties fall; civil wars happen; invasions succeed. Mostlly, it is monarchies and tyrannies that fall this way. But! But! But! But! I'm sputtering here because singling out democracies is such a terrible move to make in this argument.
ii) Because, well, for one thing, there aren't that many historical democracies. The Death Tribble notes that Britain's democracy has lasted more than two hundred years, but that's not really true. Britain was an oligarchy with representative institutions until some point during the long road of parliamentary reforms made in the course of the Nineteenth Century. I don't know where in the progress of freedom you want to place the magic moment of breakthrough to the sunny uplands of true democracy, but it wasn't in 1816! 
iii) Given this, the whole pose of objective-data-driven-social-science is just completely wrong. What historical democracies are we singling out? There aren't that many of them, and the examples we single out: Rome, Athens, Venice --they all lasted a lot longer than two centuries. For the most part, they didn't even fall to internal tensions! In fact, if we're looking for examples, we need alleged Greek democracies of the sixth century BC, about which we know absolutely noting, and what we know is almost certainly wrong; the Roman republic (two centuries, not so much); and, I don't know, I guess Florence? Machiavelli was all upset about that, so I guess it counts. But if you're going to make some kind of point about democracies being particularly unstable, I've got a longer list right here of Chinese dynasties (alone) that fell. Though most of them made it three centuries, so good for them, I guess? Actually, I bet you could make a longer list of states-of-the-island-of-Java-that-fell-in-less-than-two-centuries than you can make of democracies that. . . 
 
iv) This is just another numbered point, but I'm separating it off because of the whole rich and deeper cray-cray factor. Not only have there not been many democracies in the world in history, there are a lot more now. Right now, and for the last two centuries, the pattern has been for dictatorships and anarchies to fall and be replaced by democracies. And the number of democracies which have fallen in that time is . . . . Hungary, maybe? Thailand's had some rough patches, too. But, overall, the clear, the very clear trend, has been the opposite of this historical insight presented above. Oh, maybe we're due at the magic two centuries mark, but until then, where's the freaking evidence?
 
So that's democracies failing. Now, the bit about the crowd realising that they can vote themselves money out of the treasury. Public debt is a feature of the modern age, ever since the Habsburgs of Spain (accuracy note: note a democracy!) started borrowing to fund their wars in the Sixteenth Century. The Habsburgs of Spain also pioneered national debt repudiation, which is clearly not a good thing, but in no way the end of the world, as we can see on account of the world not ending. 
 
The Habsburgs having set a precedent, everyone started borrowing large amounts of money to fund their wars. And stuff: Like, for example, corruption. Right down to today, the entire list of countries which have repudiated their public debts since the French Revolution consist of: the Weimar Republic (by stealth); and, assorted dictatorships and anarchies. Not a single democracy has repudiated its debt since 1815, to the best of my knowledge.
 
Why? Because, in the mid-seventeenth century, two regimes which fought the Spanish a lot realised that they had to put their national-debt-raising on a solid footing and establish proper taxation to pay for it. And you know what countries those were? Two republics! (Dutch, English.) Then, in the Eighteenth Century, in a particularly bad episode of public debt repudiation, the French monarchy's handling of it led to a revolution which established a republic , which, in turn, put French finances on the right path.
 
One of the more interesting things about this was that they did so by getting rid of the rich and connected rentier class which took a large share of the public debt as private payment. It turns out that monarchies last until aristocrats realise that they can privilege themselves a fortune out of the public treasury. . . 
 
Meanwhile, in the second decade of the 21st century, we see public debt shrinking everywhere. It is projected that the American debt will stop shrinking and start growing at some point in the future, but this is because the projections assume that Americans will  never raise taxes, ever again. For example, you will not raise your social security taxes by, for example, eliminating the tax preference for private retirement plans that have so dramatically failed their investors. I --never mind. Of course, that tax break has served at least one purpose: it has put a lot of money in the hands of the American financial industry, and, since some of it comes back in the form of lobbying money, into the hands of its politicians. 
 
Something about public largesse?

This Charity Bookstore Is Begging People To Stop Donating Their Copies Of 'Fifty Shades Of Grey'
 

For those finding the movie DC verse looking too grumpy...
The small screen cross over looks like it will be fun
 

 
If a girl that pretty said "YES" like that every time I got her ice cream, I'd be fetching fast too

"Good triumphs over Evil while Neutral gets the bill" 
 
Heh.
Okay, I like that line more than I should.

I haven't been this shocked since I saw gambling happening in the Casablanca movie 

I'm thinking a ES: HRRP OAF: Cell Phone (-1) 6 Points
 
Eidetic Memory: Audio/Visual Only (-1/2), OAF: Cell Phone (-1) 2 Points
 
Higher end versions could also add Lightning Calculator and Bump of Direction.  
 
Shows why having a VPP 20 Points is a  must for most heroes.