- Reality TV attention whore/actress Julianne Hough is extremely ignorant, extremely stupid, an outright liar
– or perhaps all three. Hough is the latest public figure to fall victim to the
ol’ “dress up for Halloween as your favorite character who happens to be black
and paint your face to look like them in an incredibly offensive display of
outdated racism” trick. Hough (allegedly) thought she was doing nothing more
than repping her favorite character in the Netflix prison series “Orange
Is the New Black” for a Halloween party when she donned an outfit comprised
of an orange jumpsuit and blackface makeup. Her story is that her costume
was styled after actress Uzo Aduba's inmate
Crazy Eyes on the show and in her defense, she did rock a very fitting nametag with
Crazy Eyes’ moniker scrawled on it. However, Hough’s outfit quickly made its
way online and spread across social media platforms, where people weren't
exactly feeling her attempted tribute to a fictional television inmate. That
led Hough’s publicist, er, Hough herself to issue a carefully crafted apology
for the incident. "I am a huge fan of the show Orange is the New black,
actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created. It certainly was never my
intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my
costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize," Hough said. As
for “Orange is the New Black,” Netflix renewed the Jenji Kohan-created series for a 13-episode second season back in
June and Hough will next be seen (theoretically sans blackface) alongside Russell Brand in Diablo Cody's latest film, “Paradise,”
which opened in limited release on Oct. 19……..
- LinkedIn remains the most boring social networking site around, but
perhaps this will add some intrigue. After debuting its new Intro functionality,
launched by CEO Jeff Weiner earlier this week, LinkedIn is clearly hoping to
make its business networking services more mobile-friendly. That’s actually not
the interesting part, not if worries that the changes will make LinkedIn more
attractive to hackers prove accurate. Multiple online security firms expressed
immediate concerns that LinkedIn is essentially putting up a neon sign asking
hackers to take their best shot. James Lyne, Global Head of Security Research
for anti-malware company Sophos, wrote in a blog posting that LinkedIn has
"put up a big sign advertising to cyber criminals, nation states and
others 'Hack here, we've got loads of juicy data.’” Intro links into Apple's
iOS native e-mail application and works by reconfiguring a user’s email to
proxy through LinkedIn servers. Yes, that means funneling important emails
through specific servers that hackers will be well aware of and inspired to
target. By redirecting those emails, LinkedIn will be able to insert a banner
that appears to be integrated with the application natively. That makes
LinkedIn a middleman for users’ email services and this opens up all manner of
tantalizing possibilities for seedy souls around the Internet. Julie Inouye,
LinkedIn's corporate communications director, insisted the company has taken
extensive security and privacy precautions. "We take the privacy and
security of our members' data very seriously and have taken a thoughtful
approach to ensure we've put the right security precautions in place for the
LinkedIn Intro product," Inouye said. She went on to lay out the
security features, including isolating the Intro environment as a separate high
security segment from the rest of LinkedIn systems and retaining an outside
vendor to review the code dealing with transmission of credentials and handling
email content……..
- Nice try, Manchester United. The world’s most
famous soccer club is also the world’s biggest bunch of closeted racists – or
so it would appear after a Swastika-style logo appeared on a weekly email sent
to fans. Club officials have launched an internal investigation and vowed to
find out who is responsible for an email headed by a logo in the shape of the
infamous Nazi emblem formed by the words “New Order.” The logo appeared atop an
email with the same title. Given that both the words and the image have direct
and lasting Nazi connotations based on a reference to Adolf Hitler's speech
calling for a European New Order, a professional sports franchise or any other
organization with both a pulse and a collective IQ above 14 would never use
them on any internal or external materials. The club’s head of media, David
Sternberg, apologized for the “mistake” after fan backlash on social media and
promised that the truth would be found out. In other words, some entry-level
flack in the marketing department or an intern will take the fall and be fired,
with that firing tagged with a lame-o apology stating that there was no ill
intent at all and that the organization is wholeheartedly sorry if its
“mistake” offended anyone. Heck, that apology may even come complete with the
suggestion that the reference to New Order was actually intended to play off
the famous Manchester band of the same name and not an allusion to the
atrocities and heinous inhumane acts of the Nazi regime. The irony is that
racism and bigotry – usually among fans – is rampant in soccer around the world
and the odds of this month ending without another incident involving hatred,
bigotry and/or racism in the sport are much lower than the odds that Manchester
United will actually come clean about what happened in this particular incident……..
- Some people are simply not meant to be parents. Colombian mother
Margarita de Jesus Zapata Moreno probably should have taken a pass on
procreating in light of allegations by local police that she was pimping out
her own daughters for about $200 a piece to make ends meet. Granted, she has 13
daughters and therefore might feel like she can spare one or two every now and
then to be forced to have sex with total strangers so their mother could make
some extra cash, but that just seems a bit shady. Moreno was arrested this week
along with a 51-year-old contractor accused of impregnating one of the young
girls. Police in Bogota learned of the alleged sex trafficking after the
14-year-old girl refused to get an abortion and reported the pair to
authorities. "Being a minor, she was brave to come forward and to reject
and avoid an abortion," said Bogota police Col. Carlos Menendez.
"That's where the investigation started." When they investigated,
detectives found that Moreno began prostituting her daughters when reached
the ripe old age of 12, offering men who had a “favorable financial
situation” about $200 per minor. One silver lining from the case is that police
uncovered the prostitution ring before the youngest daughter -- at 9 years old –
could be forced into the same sickening lifestyle as her older sisters. One
decidedly non-silver lining is the fact that Moreno allegedly plied the girls
with drugs and alcohol to get them to comply and the combination of booze, pot,
coke and forced sex with strangers for their mother’s profit has left many of
the girls as drug addicts who live on the streets as prostitutes. While Moreno
and the contractor, Tito Cornelio Daza, both deny the accusations, they have
been charged with carnal abuse of a minor and enforcement of prostitution
and face up to 25 years in prison. Police are searching for men who may have been
with the girls in the hopes of arresting them as well………
- Hide the valuables and get ready for the indecipherable
screaming and mumbling, visitors to the San Diego Zoo. Wait….that’s not how real-life Tasmanian
devils behave? It’s just a silly Warner Bros. cartoon depiction of these
elusive creatures? Well, scratch the part about the screaming and mumbling, but
visitors to the zoo can still see four Tasmanian devils brought in from
Australia. The animals made their public debut at the zoo late last week,
giving fans a chance to catch their first glimpse of Bradley, Bixby, De-Vos,
and Usmar. The quartet arrived at the zoo last month, but they were placed into
a mandatory 30-day quarantine and were finally allowed to move to their new
home Thursday. The San Diego Zoo is the only one in the U.S. to have the
endangered species and will house the animals in its Australian Outback
exhibit. Usmar is the lone female in the group, meaning the other three will
have to compete for the alpha male/devil title. The devils are nocturnal
hunters known for their keen senses of smell and hearing and their distinctive snarl
and high-pitched scream. All four came from the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in
Australia. Tasmanian devils are native to the island state of Tasmania, but
they face extinction in the wild due to devil facial tumor disease, a rare,
contagious cancer found only in devils. Known as DFTD, it is transmitted from
one animal to another through biting, a common behavior among devils when
mating and feeding. When it strikes, the disease kills all infected devils
within 6-12 months because there is no known cure or vaccine. All four of the Tasmanian
devils at the San Diego Zoo are free of the disease and their presence makes
the zoo part of the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program, a government initiative
established 10 years ago to fight the condition……..
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