Saturday, February 18, 2017

From washing machine fires to make-believe girlfriends: Some of Snapchat's most embarrassing 'life fails' that have taken the internet by storm

PUBLISHED: 20:08 EST, 17 February 2017 | UPDATED: 01:57 EST, 18 February 2017

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In the days before electronic technology and social media, humanity's most embarrassing moments could often be swept under the rug and forgotten.

But now, they are often immortalised by the camera phone and splashed on the internet for the whole world to see.

From the slapstick to the downright idiotic, some of the most hilarious 'life fails' have been doing the rounds on Snapchat recently.

Below are some examples of the best, or worst, of embarrassing gaffes that have ended up online, for your enjoyment.

They include a grandmother shouting at a pelican, to a first-time washing machine user setting their appliance on fire.

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This won't wash: We're not entirely sure how this bathroom handyman thought customers were going to clean their hands after he stuck a solid bar of soap in a dispenser that is obviously meant for liquid

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Couple problems: The lady on the left has got dressed up for a saucy evening in with her man, but he seems entirely more occupied with his virtual football match. Meanwhile the couple on the right are in fact not a couple at all, but a man pretending his 'girlfriend' has taken a picture of him. On reflection, he probably should have paid more attention to the mirror in the background

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Ropy parenting: This father clearly had the best intentions at heart when he decided to give his little girl a piggyback on a rope swing at a children's play area, but the inevitable happened and the youngster can be seen in an 'after' photo with her head stuck in the foam blocks below as her legs flail helplessly above the surface

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Blaze of laundry: Not only did the Snapchat user on the left manage to setting the washing machine , but clearly thought to take his hilarious photo before attempting to put it out. On the right, a kitchen explosion has caused stains to fly all over the walls and ceiling, in which a pan lid has somehow been lodged

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Access denied: This brazen message from one Playstation user to another was never likely to work. It is not known if the two know each other, but the Snapchat caption would suggest not

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Pecking order: The pelican on the left appears to be bowing its head as it receives a irate lambasting from a grandmother it has just bitten during a trip to the seafront. Meanwhile, we can only assume the woman who had prepared the food on the right is not a smoker

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Odd one out: This hungry diner was placed at number 139 in the queue, but was clearly unamused when numbers 140 and 141 were allowed to skip in front of him in the queue, with his food nowhere to be seen

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Food fiasco: An unlucky cook was making a pot of vegetables and beef when the bottom broke off, spilling the dinner all over the stove. On the right, someone panicked when they saw a bee in their car, flinging their fast food all over the vehicle

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Good effort: A school proved they might not be the smartest ones in the district with this medal/metal mix-up

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Car trouble: This driver on the left is about to have a tricky commute. As for the one on the right, their situation looks a bit more dangerous considering their engine has burst into flames

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Should I tell him?: An old man's dog seems to be taking a swim without the knowledge of its owner

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Awkward: This woman is having an embarrassing day after an unfortunate slip of the tongue in front of teens

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A Snapchat user makes light of what is clearly an expensive mistake by showing off their completely destroyed flat screen

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How to NOT pass your driver's test 101: This new driver inexplicably crashed their car in a nearly empty parking lot

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Life comes at you fast: One Snapchat user was excited to eat their giant spiral of ice cream only to have their dreams crushed

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No thanks: The unfortunate shrubbery growth may have deterred people interested in learning about canals

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Time to rethink the wedding monogram: This couple should reconsider how they are going to arrange their initials before they print out their wedding invitations

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Lasagna saga: One unlucky cook went through a roller coaster of emotions while trying to make a lasagna

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Hmm really?: This poster creator might want to make better choices and rethink this factually inaccurate slogan

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Invisible: This high schooler's yearbook photo is non-existent because of the awkward book binding

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Too hot to handle: The cold ice glass was too much of a cold shock for this hot glass table in this cautionary Snapchat

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REKT: This vanity license plate is a hilariously accurate fit for this Toyota's condition

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At least those clothes will be clean?: A Snapchat user shows someone used a bit too much detergent in this unfortunate laundry mishap

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A bad morning: On the left, a Snapchatter shows how their mom thinks she is charging her phone when she really just has the audio jack plugged in. The right side shows someone having a bad day after dropping their last roll of toilet paper in the bowl

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP."

Technically, this was Leonard Nimoy's last tweet, so they may not be his actual last words.

LLAP is short for "Live long and prosper," a saying made famous by Nimoy's "Star Trek" character Mr. Spock.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

'I am a woman, therefore, I bleed': Yogi films herself bleeding through her white pants to stand up against the stigma around periods

Austin, Texas-based yoga instructor Stephanie Góngora shared the video of herself working out while bleeding freely last week
She has since been inundated with messages ranging from enthusiastic support to outright vitriol and even death threats

By Valerie Siebert For Dailymail.com

PUBLISHED: 18:35 EST, 13 February 2017 | UPDATED: 19:44 EST, 13 February 2017

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Every woman has experienced that stressful moment when your period has arrived at an inconvenient moment, ruining a favorite pair of underwear or pants - and most also know the embarrassment that comes with trying to hide the stain.

Now, one Austin, Texas-based yoga instructor is taking a stand against the long-running stigma surrounding menstruation by sharing a powerful video of herself doing tough yoga poses as she bleeds through a pair of stark white yoga pants.

The video shows Stephanie Góngora, who is known as casa_colibri on Instagram, making her way through a series of moves in a white top, white pants and her dreadlocks tied back with a white headband.

Baring all: Austin, Texas-based yoga instructor Stephanie Góngora recently went viral with a video showing her practicing yoga in white while on her period

Making a statement: Stephanie came up with the idea after hearing from several friends who were asked to make period-themed sponsored posts

At certain points, the red stain between her legs is very clearly visible.

'I am a woman, therefore, I bleed,' she wrote in the caption, as she shared the clip with her 265,000 followers.

‘It’s messy, it’s painful, it’s terrible, & it’s beautiful. And yet, you wouldn’t know. Because I hide it,' she added.

‘I bury things at the bottom of the trash. I breathe, ragged and awkward through the cramps, all the while holding onto this tight lipped, painted on smile.'

On her own: After learning her friends were deterred by the stigma around menstruation, she decided to make her own video, without any sponsorship

No stopping: Stephanie shows off her incredible form as she moves through the tough poses

Making a mark: After sharing the video, Stephanie revealed that she was inundated with both positive and negative messages

She went on to lament how tampons are hidden with shame, and how she has felt forced to cancel social engagements at risk of being 'caught', adding: '“caught,” at what…I’m not quite sure.’

In an article for Cosmopolitan.com, Stephanie revealed that she came up with the idea after hearing that several friends had been offered a supply of tampons from an organic brand in exchange for doing a period-related Instagram post - but that they had been too wary of the stigma to go ahead with it.

'Their internal struggle over posting about something they believed in really hurt my heart,' she said. 'I've grown into a very thick skin, and even though I used to be quite shy, some things need to be said, and in this case, done.'

So, Stephanie decided to make her own post, without any kind of sponsorship attached, to make a statement.

A bit extreme: Some of those responding even told her to kill herself or threatened to kill her

No regrets: Stephanie viewed the post as a success for having opened up a conversation around the stigma

During a period, she decided to not replace her tampon and just film herself working out as the blood flowed, eventually leaking onto her pants. She described feeling 'uncomfortable' with the feeling at first, but that it was 'greatly overshadowed by a quiet sense of contentment.'

Upon posting the video, Stephanie quickly realized it 'was just as provocative as I'd expected,' with thousands of comments ranging from enthusiastic support to outright contempt and even death threats.

But despite the vitriolic comments now littering her posts, Stephanie claims she has also received 'hundreds, if not thousands of direct messages with period stories, and leak stories, thanks you's, and people admitting that they were shocked and disgusted by my post — but only until they began to consider why they felt that way.'

She concluded her post by deeming the experiment a success, in that it opened conversations about the taboo.

THE ABSURD CONSEQUENCES OF A “RIGHT TO PRIVACY”

FEBRUARY 14, 2017 THOMAS L. KNAPP 0 COMMENTS

British MP David Davis’s text messages poking fun at the appearance of a female colleague make him the latest whipping boy for those determined to root out sexism and misogyny in public life, the Daily Mail reports. Curiously, they also make him the latest poster boy for exponents of an expansive “right to privacy” like Brendan O’Neill of spiked magazine.

I’m not sure how Davis’s text messages — in which he denied attempting to kiss MP Diane Abbot because “I am not blind” — became public. The Daily Mail doesn’t say. Perhaps the recipients talked about them. Perhaps his phone was hacked.

If the latter, there are certainly moral and legal aspects of the matter which bear at least tangentially on privacy. But O’Neill takes those aspects far beyond the realm of the reasonable. He asserts a general ethical constraint along the lines of the legal “fruit of the poison tree” standard under which evidence illegally obtained cannot be used in trials, but on steroids.

“That Davis’s texts were leaked,” writes O’Neill, “doesn’t make it okay to haul him over the coals for them, to insist that he retract and repent, because this still amounts to shaming someone for a private conversation.”

Under O’Neill’s standard of personal behavior, you cannot allow something that you learn about me to affect your opinion of me or your behavior toward me in any way if I did not intend for you to be aware of it.

If I’m a Christian clergyman and a parishioner catches me praying in the Islamic manner, or engaged in sexual congress with a woman not my wife, when he barges into the parsonage uninvited, well, he should just keep his mouth shut about it — and even if he doesn’t the congregation certainly shouldn’t discharge me or ask their denomination to defrock me. After all, that would be a violation of my privacy!

That’s absurd.

A number of rights do, in effect, protect personal privacy. The rights of free speech and free press include the right to refrain from speaking or publishing if there’s something I don’t want to tell you. Property rights mean that I can bar you from my house and knowledge of what goes on there absent a warrant issued on probable cause to believe I’ve committed a crime. It’s proper that information gained in violation of those rights be excluded from criminal proceedings, if for no other reason than to discourage police from violating those rights.

But personal and public opinion aren’t court proceedings such as those referred to by Edward Coke when he said (as quoted by O’Neill) “no man, ecclesiastical or temporal, shall be examined upon the secret thoughts of his heart, or of his secret opinion.”

Nor is there a “right to privacy” — a right to forbid other people to know things — as such. Privacy is merely an effect, an imperfect intersection of penumbrae emanating from other rights.

Like the European Union’s “right to be forgotten,” O’Neill’s “requirement to forget” is illiberal and Orwellian.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Autistic high school student raped classmate TWICE while aide napped, lawsuit claims

Former Honolulu student says school staffer slept as classmate raped her
She was assaulted twice in a row by student with mental disability in 2012
Rapes took place in school auditorium during band practice
Claims special aide to autistic classmate was napping while assaults took place
Lawsuit filed Monday targets aide and school staff for failing to supervise properly

By Associated Press

PUBLISHED: 17:43 EST, 14 February 2017 | UPDATED: 20:38 EST, 14 February 2017

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An autistic high school student in Honolulu raped a classmate while the adult assigned to monitor him was taking a nap, a federal lawsuit filed Monday claimed.

The autistic student had a full-time one-on-one aide because he was known to be violent, the lawsuit accusing Hawaii's statewide school district of negligence said.

The aide was asleep when the 2012 attack happened during Pearl City High School band practice, the lawsuit said.

A 10th-grade girl was in the back of the band at the percussion section when the larger 11th-grader raped her once there, and then again in a curtained area of the auditorium.

Shown is the Pearl City High School band room. A 10th-grade girl was raped twice by a special needs student during band practice in 2012; she now says it happened while an aide napped

Throughout the attacks, the aide was sleeping in the audience section of the auditorium, the lawsuit said.

The girl reported the rape to her mother and police, said her attorney Peter Hsieh.

The autistic student was prosecuted in family court and convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual assault, Hsieh said.

'She dropped out of high school. She couldn't finish because of what happened to her,' Hsieh said.

The suit claims a student aide was sleeping in a seat in the school auditorium while the rapes took place (stock photo)

Pearl City High School in Honolulu is shown. The rape victim dropped out of school after the attack, but later earned a GED and is now a bioengineering student at the University of Hawaii

But she later earned a GED diploma and is now studying bioengineering at the University of Hawaii, he said.

'She's basically turned an adverse situation as a motivator for her,' he said, adding that it was her decision to pursue a civil lawsuit.

In a separate, similar case, a jury last year determined that the Department of Education failed to protect a special education student who said she was raped by a special education classmate at Waianae High School.

The jury awarded the girl and her mother about $810,000 in damages, but the state appealed. The case is before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Hsieh, who also handled that case.

The two lawsuits send a 'loud message that there is a lack of proper training and supervision of teachers, aides and assistants,' Hsieh said, 'especially when it comes to children who have a history of violence.'

Kyle Miyashiro, who was a vice principal at Peal City High School at the time and is named as a defendant, referred questions to the school's principal who didn't immediately respond Tuesday.

The aide, Bryan Simpson, is also named as a defendant and no longer works at the school, Miyashiro said. Simpson couldn't be reached for comment.

State Department of Education spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz declined to comment on pending litigation.

Ethics office: White House should investigate Conway for Ivanka Trump plug

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The Office of Government Ethics is recommending that the White House take disciplinary action against Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to President Trump, for endorsing Ivanka Trump's products in a TV interview.

Walter Shaub, the director of the ethics office, wrote in a letter to the White House that there is "strong reason to believe" Conway violated ethics standards and that disciplinary action is warranted. He suggested that the White House open an investigation.

Shaub likened what Conway did to appearing in a TV commercial.

Conway gave the endorsement on Fox News Channel last week, one day after the president attacked the Nordstrom department store chain for treating his daughter unfairly. Nordstrom has said it dropped her line of clothing and accessories because they weren't selling well.

"Go buy Ivanka's stuff, is what I would tell you," Conway told Fox News. "It's a wonderful line. I own some of it. I fully -- I'm going to just, I'm going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."

Shaub sent the letter to the White House after a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House Oversight Committee asked the agency to look into Conway.

Shaub asked for an answer from the White House by Feb. 28.

Federal ethics standards say public employees may not use their positions "for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity."

The ethics office itself has no enforcement power. Disciplinary action against federal employees who violate ethics standards is left to the individual agencies where they work -- in this case the White House.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said last week that Conway had been "counseled" but did not elaborate. Conway later said that Trump "supports me 100%."

"At some point, I hope American women work for a boss that treats them the way President Trump treated me today," Conway said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment after Shaub's letter was made public.

Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, called it a "textbook violation of federal ethics rules."

"The president should follow the independent advice of the Office of Government Ethics to impose discipline on Ms. Conway," he said in a statement.

The office of Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the committee chairman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

More than 1,500 federal workers were accused of violating government ethics rules in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available. Those employees were hit with disciplinary actions ranging from reprimand to dismissal.