Really giving Kanye a run for his money with that cover art.

My image focused, “Karen” of a sister stole one of my teenage son’s Christmas presents at my parents’ Christmas Eve gathering. He was in that awkward, angsty stage and this really bothered him. She thought it was super funny and refused to return it, even when I quietly took her aside and asked nicely. Nothing says…

The giver was my father, not me, but this is still a great story.

Not given by me but by a now-ex friend (“ex” for a myriad of reasons similar to this):

Her stepson was getting married on Christmas eve...she gave him a $1000 gift certificate to a divorce lawyer, “because we can all see that coming.”

Hi! Actual paleontologist here! Absolutely NO ONE does this for the money!! We are literally all so fucking poor (I have actually been told by other employees of my museum that I should be looking into marrying rich).

It’s even more insane when you consider that the vast majority of basic research is done at the academic level, and the ones doing all the work are grad students that don’t even make enough to live on (I’ve been there). Their advisors are lucky if they even get any grant money to put together a laboratory, let alone…

Seriously, who the fuck goes into the hard sciences to get rich? Even the discoverers of vital things like penicillin or “here’s how to stop those rampages of cholera” or “say, if you pay attention you can see that the earth actually goes around the sun” weren’t exactly showered with cash.

It’s bizarre, because the same people who say shit like this ALSO think that Trump is smart because he has money.

It’s positively asinine. I think it’s part of our ongoing — and growing — anti-intellectualism. Somehow all those smart people are out there trying to fool us into something scary and weird and then bilk is out of our hard-earned money. That’s what America is exceptional at — willful ignorance. 

I’m so fucking sick of this weird myth that scientists are “just in it for the money” and raking in these big paychecks. My husband works for NASA (not a scientist, but scientist-adjacent) and he has to deal with assholes saying this kind of shit and it’s infuriating. 

Oil does not come from dead dinosaurs. Can we all stop spreading that ridiculous fiction?

I know it’s your job to report on them and all.. But can I just say that I’m so tired of living in a world where rich people get attention and status purely because they’re rich?

You make a very good point, and unlike you, Cam’ron sounds like a ditz (though the whole podcast series sounds like it’s supposed to be for laughs, so who knows?).

Cam’ron

Jersey Shore parents are fighting!!!! [TMZ]

On the one hand, the tabloids called Sarah the Duchess of Pork after she had her kids.

That is NOT a good coat

There’s something very meta about writing five paragraphs about how people won’t stop writing about this even though there’s nothing to write about.

Any time I hear a comedian talk about how they have to “take risks” and whatnot, it always strikes me as a pathetic, feeble excuse. The risk in comedy is not being funny, but the idea that shitting on some group of disadvantaged people is a risk makes so little sense.