A post shared on social media allegedly shows an argument in a parking lot between a man in a car and a woman in a hijab. Verdict: False The video was originally posted by an account that regularly uploads pranks. Fact Check: The U.S. will transfer $1 billion in weapons to Israel if approved by congress, CBS News reported. […]

Josiah found more than just an education; he found a community

He was part of the band during the peak of their success

Jim Otto has recently passed away

He stole from the Trump Organization

A video shared on TikTok purports a crowd made an expletive chant aimed at President Joe Biden when he left church on Mother’s Day 2024. @raul283747373♬ sonido original – Raul Verdict: False The claim is false, as the audio has been digitally edited. No expletive chant can be heard in the original clip, which is […]

The post How Silver Vine Affects Cats: Olga’s Experience With Hallucinogens by Christopher Bays appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com. Hi, I’m Christopher! Read my introduction to learn more about me and my silly Russian Blue cat, Olga. Indoor cats don’t live very exciting lives when their owners aren’t around to entertain them. They can play with toys and interactive games, tear up the furniture, and nibble on houseplants, but they prefer interacting with their owners to the alternatives. Although I work from home, Olga’s playtime schedule doesn’t always align with mine. When I’m finished with work and dinner, she’s usually conked out on the couch and doesn’t want to chase a paper ball or run around the house. I don’t buy new treats or toys because I haven’t had much luck in the past, and Olga is an incredibly opinionated feline. Catnip’s Effects She likes catnip toys, but she gets tired of them quickly. She undoubtedly enjoys the euphoria of catnip, and I’m unsure why, but she prefers to roll around on the kitchen floor rather than the carpet when she’s hallucinating. Perhaps the vinyl comforts her when she sees colorful patterns and fantasizes about flightless birds. I haven’t given her catnip in a while, but I did something out of character last week and bought her a bag of silver vine (Actinidia polygama) sticks. I was skeptical that they would affect her since she’s a freak of nature, and like most cat owners, I believe my cat is stranger than everyone else’s. Why yes, I am strange! Prepping the Silver Vine The instructions on the silver vine bag said to remove the bark before giving it to your cat, which I thought was odd since every picture on the company’s website had cats chewing on sticks with bark. Removing the bark is supposed to make the silver vine more aromatic and appealing to cats, and I think they only kept the bark on because it looked better in the photos. Silver vine has a dark brown bark, but the interior is lighter and less photogenic. I peeled the bark off with a potato peeler, and when I dumped it in the trash can, Olga ran over and started sniffing the floor around it. I called her over to the living room and held out the stick. She sniffed it for a few seconds and tried to knock it out of my hand. I do enjoy a good mystical journey Olga’s Mystical Journey When I threw it out in the hallway, she ran to it, and for the next 20 or 30 minutes, she rolled around on the floor, chewed on the stick, and acted like a happy drunk. Unlike catnip, the silver vine kept her glued to the floor. After she stretched out, she didn’t want to get up. When I tossed the stick across the room, she scooted toward it by using her front legs as carpet paddles. I’ve never seen a lazy cat move so fast while lying down. Silver vine doesn’t affect all cats, and I was concerned Olga wouldn’t like it, but it turned her into a comical fool and allowed me to make an amusing film. The post How Silver Vine Affects Cats: Olga’s Experience With Hallucinogens by Christopher Bays appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

News The Sandman The Sandman Has Cast the Rest of Dream’s Siblings There won’t be any family drama whatsoever By Molly Templeton | Published on May 20, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Fans of The Sandman comic series definitely, absolutely noticed that the first season of Netflix’s The Sandman adaptation did not include all the members of the Endless, the siblings of Dream (Tom Sturridge). We got half of them—Kirby as Death; Mason Alexander Park as Desire; and Donna Preston as Despair. But here comes the rest of the fam. Adrian Lester joins the show as Destiny, the eldest of the Endless. Esmé Creed-Miles plays Delirium, the youngest, who (say it with me!) was once known as Delight. And Barry Sloane will be The Prodigal. Yes, The Prodigal, specifically. This sibling has also been known as Destruction, but he goes by a different name early in the comics. You can get a too-brief look at each of them in the video below. Lester was recently seen in Renegade Nell. Creed-Miles played the title character in Prime Video’s Hanna and provided the voice of Cassandra in The Legend of Vox Machina. Sloane was recently in Passenger and has done voice work in Call of Duty games. The second season of the show seems likely to follow the second graphic novel collection, The Season of Mists, which begins with a family meeting and then—literally—goes to hell. Gwendoline Christie will be returning as Lucifer; the rest of the returning cast includes Patton Oswalt, Vivienne Acheampong, Jenna Coleman, Ferdinand Kingsley, Stephen Fry, Asim Chaudhry, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Vanesu Samunyai, and Razane Jammal. There’s no word as to when The Sandman will return to Netflix, but the streamer’s announcement about the new cast members makes note of today’s date: The comic series debuted 35 years ago today, exactly. So that’s neat. The first season of The Sandman is available on Netflix.[end-mark] The post <i>The Sandman</i> Has Cast the Rest of Dream’s Siblings appeared first on Reactor.

Column SFF Bestiary Blair Witch-ing the Chupacabra: Chupacabra Territory (2016) This week, the SFF Bestiary looks at a blurry, shaky chupacabra. By Judith Tarr | Published on May 20, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Sometimes we just need a stupid movie. MST3000 built a whole cult around reviews of genre films, the more ridiculous, the better. Chupacabra Territory never made it onto the roster, but it definitely falls into the category of “so bad it’s hard to even say if it’s good.” It has a 14% Rotten Tomatoes score. It is, in its own weird way, surprisingly entertaining. It’s an unabashed knockoff of The Blair Witch Project. Mock documentary, found footage allegedly retained by the FBI. College kids on a beer-fueled road trip into CHUPACABRA TERRITORY. There are signs and everything. It’s set in California because that’s where the movies live, but in an obscure area, the Pinewood Forest near Lake Emerald. Three guys and a relentlessly perky girl are all excited about tracking down the monster that slaughtered four campers, leaving behind an assortment of random body parts and a strange hand-written book liberally stained with blood. It’s so cool! Let’s find old Chup (which rhymes with Soup)! Let’s get naked and have wild sex! Let’s party! Perky Amber is the ringleader. She’s a self-professed witch and psychic, and she’s bubbling with glee about the book and the rituals and how she’s going to summon the chupacabra. It clearly has not dawned on her that if the monster shredded four previous campers, it’s probably not going to be all cuddly and cute and nice to her, either. Her guy friends are mostly there for the beer and the sex. There’s her boytoy Joe, token skeptic Morgan, and camera guy Dave. Dave shoots most of the film, but they all end up wearing cameras, for extra-special bonus shakycam footage. For further extra bonus points, they come across another party of clueless youth, with two hot girls and a guy and another camera. They’ve lost their number four (four seems to be the statutory number of campers in this park), and are roaming around calling for him. This is on top of the One-Eyed Yokel at the gas station on the way in, who intones dire warnings about the beast and the darkness, and the Clueless Guy in Uniform who tries to keep them out of the park, and the Coyote Biologist in camo with a big gun. The script operates on the principle of throwing a bunch of ideas at the wall and not caring if any of them stick. There’s a heaping helping of gore on top of the bouncing boobs and the booze-and-sex gags. And raccoon pee. And toilet paper. Never forget the toilet paper. The chupacabra lore is as random as the rest of the plot. Matt McWilliams’ script may owe a distant debt to the Princeton timeline of the chupacabra, with its references to livestock mutilations. The animals supposedly killed by the cryptid, including a coyote and a deer, are extensively (and bloodily) torn up, with two signature wounds: paired punctures in the neck, and lingeringly filmed and described removal of the genitals. That’s not too far off the standard accounts, but McWilliams has more to add. This chupacabra can be summoned by arcane rituals or, like Bigfoot, by hooting, howling calls. Its own roars and howls fill the woods at night. But that’s not all. The chupacabra can take over a human’s mind and turn them into a kind of zombie, with effects that may wear off, or may not, depending on whether the victim is a main character or a bit player. It exudes a weird sticky “residue” that causes a severe allergic reaction and eventually eats away the skin. Like a demon, it is repelled by salt; a circle of that keeps it away, as long as no one is stupid enough to break the circle. It’s not clear what these additions to the lore are for, except to up the grue factor and provide an excuse for a scene in which Amber masturbates at length under a tree. See above re: ideas thrown at wall. Some of them are stickier than others. We never get a clear view of the actual cryptid. Even the blurry, pixelated ones don’t show up until quite late. We see what it does to animals and humans, we hear it roaring and howling and rampaging around the woods. When we finally get a glimpse, it’s basically Gollum. Weird, skinny, grey, big head, pointy ears. That’s the Latin American version rather than the canine subspecies supposedly found in Texas: more X-Files than Monsterquest. McWilliams’ Pinewood Forest is full of chupacabras, happily devastating the wildlife and tearing up camps and campers. We’re not supposed to wonder how it gets there from Mexico and points south and east, and we certainly won’t be asking how it sustains a population. We’re here for the gore and the girls, and we know how it has to end. Blair Witch points the way. We have no choice but to follow. [end-mark] The post Blair Witch-ing the Chupacabra: <i>Chupacabra Territory</i> (2016) appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks, has successfully been granted permission by the UK’s High Court to contest his extradition to the United States on espionage allegations. Assange is currently under prosecution in the US, suspected of conspiring activities aimed at acquiring and sharing classified defense material involving hundreds of thousands of leaked documents dating from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, that showed alleged war crimes. Assange was absent from the hearing in London due to health concerns. The risk of his swift removal and actions taking place towards his extradition would have escalated significantly if his plea for an appeal had been denied. However, his defense team is firmly committed to bringing a halt to his extradition and is prepared to lobby the European Court of Human Rights for an urgent injunction to prevent it. Crowds of Assange’s steadfast supporters surrounded the Royal Courts of Justice in anticipation of this key hearing today. This comes in the wake of an earlier appeal to challenge a prior judgment concerning his extradition made at a two-day tribunal that occurred in February. His defense team has raised concerns that Assange could potentially face a prison sentence of up to 175 years if found guilty of disclosing the leaked documents. They have further argued that prosecuting him can be seen as a form of “state retaliation” for his journalism. The dismissal of the majority of Assange’s legal defenses by Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Adam Johnson last month has not eclipsed his right to appeal on three terms, if the US guarantees certain assurances. The US must give irrefutable guarantees that Assange will be safeguarded by, and be allowed to invoke, the First Amendment, protecting freedom of speech, that his trial will not be influenced by his nationality, and that he will not be subjected to the death penalty. The assurances provided by the US court were dismissed as hollow by Assange’s wife, Stella, and his representative Edward Fitzgerald KC has also declared that these assurances hold no real bond. On the question of whether a First Amendment defense would be extended to Assange during his trial, Fitzgerald asserted that no such assurance had been granted. On opposing grounds, the US Government’s representative, James Lewis KC, maintains that Assange’s conduct falls outside of First Amendment protection. Lewis articulated that the public and clandestine exposure of confidential national defense information that detrimentally jeopardized its sources could not be shielded by invoking this Amendment. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UK High Court Allows Assange to Challenge US Extradition appeared first on Reclaim The Net.