He'll always stay there, but he might take a bite or two out of your coat. ~NSHA

And only the little light on the right actually works. The icing on the cake!

Name: M&Ms Boo-tterscotch Brand: Mars Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock) Price: $3.19 Size: 8 ounces Calories per ounce: 148 Type: White Chocolate Rating: 7 out of 10

Between threats from Anonymous and a new crackdown from Twitter, ISIS is having a tough time reaching out and recruiting new psychopaths online.

To circumvent the censorship, the Islamic militant group has reportedly created its own social network called “Khelafabook.”

The Facebook clone claims it is independent and not actually sponsored by ISIS (even though it has ISIS logos all over its homepage). It says its goal is to show the world that they don’t only “live in caves” and “carry guns,” and they vow to “will rule the world by Allah’s permission.”

Khelafabook was set up by a man in Mosul, Iraq, according to The Independent, and is hosted in Egypt. There’s also an associated Twitter account which is linked to from the site.

The site first popped up last week, but has already been taken offline “to protect the info and details of its members,” according to a message on the page.

After it was taken down, Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous appeared to claim responsibility, as Vocativ points out.

For the the time being they’ll have to look elsewhere to share their terrorist pancake recipes.

MUSTACHE RIDES wanna go for a ride.

OBVIOUSLY a guy wrote this

Save on Dyson, KitchenAid, Samsung, and more. READ MORE...

It's perfect for styling your bedroom! READ MORE...

It’s so unique-looking and useful. READ MORE...

I'm using it all winter, because it's made to withstand the outdoors! READ MORE...

Behind the Music: Taylor Swift

We could always sell popcorn... Or salad dressing... That just might work.

And how have they changed over the past few years?
( Photos: 2, Comments: 72 )

‘Where people have made genuine mistakes they shouldn’t be prosecuted’ says transport secretary Louise Haigh

A new analysis of data from NASA's Voyager 2 mission reveals that the planet Uranus and its five largest moons might harbor subsurface oceans and potential conditions for life. The BBC reports: Much of what we know about them was gathered by Nasa's Voyager 2 spacecraft which visited nearly 40 years ago. But a new analysis shows that Voyager's visit coincided with a powerful solar storm, which led to a misleading idea of what the Uranian system is really like. [...] So, for 40 years we have had an incorrect view of what Uranus and its five largest moons are normally like, according to Dr William Dunn of University College London. "These results suggest that the Uranian system could be much more exciting than previously thought. There could be moons there that could have the conditions that are necessary for life, they might have oceans below the surface that could be teeming with fish!". It has been nearly 40 years since Voyager 2 last flew past the icy world and its moons. Nasa has plans to launch a new mission, the Uranus Orbiter and Probe, to go back for a closer look in 10 years' time. According to Nasa's Dr Jamie Jasinski, whose idea it was to re-examine the Voyager 2 data, the mission will need to take his results into account when designing its instruments and planning the scientific survey. "Some of the instruments for the future spacecraft are very much being designed with ideas from what we learned from Voyager 2 when it flew past the system when it was experiencing an abnormal event. So we need to rethink how exactly we are going to design the instruments on the new mission so that we can best capture the science we need to make discoveries." Nasa's Uranus probe is expected to arrive by 2045, which is when scientists hope to find out whether these far-flung icy moons, once thought of as being dead worlds, might have the possibility of being home to life. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Irish mixed martial artist Conor McGregor claimed to have had consensual sex with a woman who is accusing him of rape, a court has heard.

Justin Welby behaved like a politician and in some ways has faced the downfall of one, writes religion editor Aleem Maqbool.

1. After Sunita Williams, NASA now worried about her stranded mission partner's losing body mass  Hindustan Times
2. "My Body Has Changed, But....": Sunita Williams On Health Aboard Space Station  NDTV
3. Stranded Sunita Williams dismisses severe weight loss rumours, says she feels ‘healthier than ever’  The Times of India
4. Sunita Williams explains reason behind her changed appearance in space | 'They have routine checks, dedicated surgeons' | Inshorts  Inshorts
5. Inside Sunita Williams' extended mission: What she’s doing in space  India Today

1. Tata Steel Chess India Day 1: Abdussatorov Leads Carlsen, So, Narayanan  Chess.com
2. Magnus Carlsen interview: I probably will have the most fun playing Gukesh  Hindustan Times
3. Tata Steel Chess India - Live!  Chess News | ChessBase
4. Abdusattorov Nodirbek leads, Magnus Carlsen close behind in India Open chess  The Times of India
5. Indian chess has come a long way, courtesy Anand: Carlsen  The Hindu

1. John Krasinski reveals wife Emily Blunt's reaction to his Sexiest Man Alive title  Hindustan Times
2. Actor John Krasinski Named 'Sexiest Man Alive' Of 2024 By People Magazine  NDTV
3. Is Jim from The Office really the sexiest man in the world?  The Guardian
4. Not Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Leonardo Dicaprio, Chris Evans, or Tom Cruise, THIS actor is the sexiest  India.com
5. John Krasinski Is PEOPLE's 2024 Sexiest Man Alive!  PEOPLE

Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, Canada, United States

Continue reading Will You Be a Horrible Restaurant Customer This Holiday Season?

Will You Be a Horrible Restaurant Customer This Holiday Season? originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Europe, Austria, News

No. It's all wrong. Those fake mountains.The captain is a vampire. And there's only one Julie Andrews. Two minutes was enough #SoundofMusic

- Paola (@Paopalinaa) December 6, 2013

Continue reading And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is...

And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is... originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: North America, United States, Hotels and Accommodations

• it's warm and you're not
• former mayor Bob Filner is under house arrest, so there's less of a chance you'll get harassed
• you want to ice skate outside but don't like the cold

Continue reading Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate

Because There Aren't Enough Reasons to Visit San Diego in Winter, Now You Can Ice Skate originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 10 Dec 2013 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Donald Trump’s policies risk making the US dollar a source of global instability Expert comment LToremark 13 November 2024

Although Trump favours a weaker exchange rate, his policies are likely to have the opposite effect. The risk is that the US dollar could become too strong, which is bad news for the global economy.

President-elect Donald Trump has a dollar problem. In recent months he has shown a clear preference for a weaker exchange rate to support the competitiveness of US exports and help reduce the US trade deficit. And yet, as the market has sensed since the US election, the much more likely outcome is that his policies end up strengthening the greenback. The risk is that the US dollar – which is expensive already – becomes more obviously overvalued, and this could increase the risk of global financial instability. 

The dollar has been on a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades. From 2002 until 2011, for example, the dollar weakened by around 30 per cent in inflation-adjusted, trade-weighted terms, according to BIS data. Yet in the years since 2011, the dollar has strengthened and is now at a more appreciated level than at any time since 1985.

What shapes this rollercoaster, broadly speaking, is the global balance of economic vitality: when the US economy gains momentum relative to the rest of the world, the dollar tends to strengthen; and vice versa. 

After China joined the WTO in 2001, the balance of economic vitality shifted decisively away from the US, in favour of China and other emerging economies. This was the decade of the commodity boom: the longest, biggest peacetime increase in commodity prices in nearly 200 years during which a sustained surge in China’s economy supported GDP growth across the developing world. The dollar weakened as a result.

But after 2011, a combination of factors – including the eurozone crisis and its aftermath, together with the sagging of the Chinese economy – tipped the balance of economic vitality back in favour of the US. The dollar strengthened once again.

And since both the European and Chinese economies remain very fragile, the balance of economic vitality seems likely to keep favouring the US dollar.

Two more considerations also point to a stronger US dollar under a second Trump administration.

The first is the exchange rate implications of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports. When the US imposes tariffs on a trading partner, the foreign exchange market tends to sell that trading partner’s currency, forcing it to weaken to offset the dollar-price increase induced by the tariff. This helps explain why the Chinese renminbi depreciated by some 10 per cent in 2018 after Trump began imposing trade restrictions on China in January of that year. 

More widespread tariffs on a whole range of US trading partners should therefore strengthen the dollar more broadly.

A stronger dollar should also result from the macroeconomic framework Trump seems likely to deliver. He will certainly want to extend his 2017 tax cuts beyond 2025 when they are currently due to expire, so a more sustained loosening of US fiscal policy seems likely. Since boosting the US economy will create inflationary pressure, the market will expect interest rates to end up higher than they might otherwise be. The resulting combination of looser fiscal and tighter monetary policy tends to be a stronger currency.

The dollar probably has a fair amount of room to keep going up, since it is not obviously overvalued just yet. The US current account deficit – the broadest measure of a country’s trade deficit, and a rough but useful measure of financial vulnerability – was a little over 3 per cent of GDP last year. 

This is around half the level it reached in 2006, just before the 2008 global financial crisis, meaning the risks arising from an overvalued dollar may be for the latter part of Trump’s second presidency.

A strengthening dollar is also not great news for the rest of the world economy. A strong dollar tends to depress global trade growth, restrict developing countries’ access to international capital markets, and make it more difficult for countries whose currencies will be weakening to keep inflation under control.

If and when the dollar becomes unsustainably expensive, a further problem will present itself: how to deal with an overvalued currency without risking a lot of financial dislocation.

This problem last occurred in early 1985, when the dollar was universally reckoned to be dangerously dear. At that time the US was able to call on trading partners who depended on the US security umbrella – the UK, Germany, France and Japan – to negotiate the ‘Plaza Accord’, which coordinated a series of interventions in the foreign exchange market that allowed the dollar to decline in a measured way.  

It is virtually unimaginable that something similar could be negotiated today, not least because Chinese policymakers believe that the post-Plaza strengthening of the yen in the late 1980s led to an economic disaster for Japan. Beijing will not play ball.

Without much scope for a negotiated decline in the dollar, more chaotic alternatives seem likely. 

One is that the market decides suddenly that it no longer has an appetite for expensive dollar-denominated assets, and this might lead to a messy adjustment in the foreign exchange market. 

Implications of the new US presidency: what awaits Ukraine? 19 November 2024 — 2:00PM TO 3:30PM Anonymous (not verified) 13 November 2024 Online

After 1000 days of Kyiv’s resistance, experts discuss how to secure Ukraine’s and Europe’s future.   

The 19 November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

The 19^th November marks 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The country faces an ever-more ferocious fight for its future existence.

Having been given time to adapt, largely due to the slow release of Western military aid, the Russian army is pressing home its advantage. Along the entire eastern frontline, the Russians are simultaneously bombarding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities. With the election of Donald Trump in the US, it seems to many that the tide has turned definitively in Putin’s favour at the political, as well as the military, level.

Trump’s declared ambition to resolve the war in 24 hours implies a Russian-American deal, cutting Kyiv out of negotiations. Such an ‘agreement’ would endanger the country’s future and expose the rest of Europe.

This webinar will cover:

• Ukraine’s strategy of resistance in the context of Trump’s White House.
• The immediate risks during the transition period.
• How Kyiv sees Europe’s role in the new geopolitical environment. Will Kyiv completely give up on the US?
• The extent to which Germany, Ukraine’s second largest donor, can step in.  

How do you see the Rockies utilizing Ryan McMahon this season? Beat reporter Thomas Harding answers this question and more from fans in the latest Rockies Inbox.

Raimel Tapia has renewed opportunity with the Rockies in 2019, along with a need to deliver.

Ryan McMahon and the Rockies hope the struggles of 2018 lead to an immediate payoff. McMahon is a prime competitor for regular starts at second base, and those will come his way if he realizes potential for power and run production.

With each passing day, the hype continues to grow around Vladimir Guerrero Jr., but MLB Pipeline's top-ranked prospect seems to be keeping a pretty level head throughout all the chaos.