Pentatonix - Bah Humbug

Kings of Leon - To Space

New Type of ATM Theft Getting Traction with Local Gangs

ATM "jackpotting" is the exploitation of physical and software vulnerabilities in ATM machines that result in the machines dispensing cash. These attacks can happen at any time and typically take very little time so culprits can quickly commit the crime.  ATM jackpotting uses the elements of both physical crime and cybercrime to get an ATM to dispense cash. The offenders use a portable device to physically connect to the ATM. This "rogue" device can be a laptop, a smartphone or a tablet PC. They also use malware to target the machine's cash dispenser and force it to dispense cash.

Furthermore, attackers will often use deception to limit risk, like dressing as service personnel to avoid scrutiny while selecting easier targets, such as ATMs in isolated locations or unprotected by human security guards.  With physical access to a machine, ATM jackpotting enables the theft of the machine's cash reserves, which are not tied to the balance of any one bank account. Successful thieves who remain undetected can potentially walk away with all the cash that was stored in the machine at that time.

Gorillaz & IDLES - The God of Lying

Musk Gets Savaged by Old Lady on Social Media

It’s keyboards at dawn, folks!  Elon Musk has been comprehensively trolled on his own social media platform, and if that irony wasn’t delicious enough, his online nemesis isn’t some Fortnite-playing 12-year-old boy but an octogenarian literary icon. American author Joyce Carol Oates branded the tech boss “totally uneducated” and “uncultured” in a damning post which has evidently got under Musk’s skin.

The spat began when Musk bullishly defended his proposed trillion-dollar Tesla pay package. That inspired 87-year-old Oates to post a savage indictment: “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates”, such as “praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads)”.

Oates ended her attack: “In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’” The fact that she referred to the platform by its original name, Twitter, rather than Musk's attempted rebrand, was the icing on the cake.

The post about Musk went viral, with 5.5 million views, plus 11,000 retweets and 89,000 likes – and the subject of her stinging rebuke has not taken it well. In a series of erratic posts, Musk first went on the counter-attack, writing the following day: “Everything she says in her post about me can be shown to be demonstrably false with a simple search. Oates is a lazy liar and … an abuser of semicolons!” He followed that up with the cattier post: “Eating a bag of sawdust would be vastly more enjoyable than reading the laboriously pretentious drivel of Oates.”

However, Musk appeared to take Oates’s words to heart. Amusingly, right after the veteran author accused him of being culturally inert, Musk took great pains to demonstrate his bona fides. He shared such profound film insights as “Man on Fire is great”, "Edge of Tomorrow is a “great movie”, and “Fifth Element has great style”. Top tip for Musk: perhaps try using more than a single adjective when you’re feuding with a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

In an astonishing coincidence, X then promoted an ad from the book app Blinkist claiming that “Elon reads a lot” and sharing his nine non-fiction recommendations. Musk also advised his followers to listen to an audiobook of Homer’s Iliad at 1.25 speed, but linked to Homer’s Odyssey instead; he has since deleted the post. 

If Musk hoped that this burst of cultural engagement would silence Oates, he was sadly mistaken. The author landed another right hook on November 11, replying to a post about Musk always wanting to leave an event by saying: “That’s because when he gets there, he has brought his own self along; & whatever club he’s invited to join has been devalued by the invitation.” Oates also said of Musk’s estranged transgender daughter Vivian Wilson: “A normal parent would be very proud.” 

Musk clearly didn’t know who he was messing with. This particular literary lion simply loves to sharpen her claws on social media, and Oates has proved to be oddly well-suited to the medium thanks to her combination of intellectual acuity and unapologetically blistering, often outrage-sparking, opinions. 

 

Release the [Unredacted] Epstein Files!

Now that the House is being forced to take a vote on releasing the Epstein files,  convicted felon Donald Trump has changed course and now seemingly supports the release.  But many feel that there are other reasons for the Trump capitulation-- there are fears that Trump officials have spent the months-long delay redacting/deleting the names of Trump and other Republications.  

“They’ll [DOJ] redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files, and have a very slanted version of it come out… without really seeing any of their bad behavior,” admitted Joseph Schnitt, Acting Deputy Chief at the Office of Enforcement Operations for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), on hidden camera to an undercover OMG journalist. Schnitt confirmed that the government is in possession of an extensive trove of Epstein-related documents but warned that any release would be politically manipulated.

Schnitt admitted that “There’s thousands and thousands of page-open files,” and further described how the department would handle disclosure of the material: “If they’re released in any way, it’s going to be very redacted.”

He further revealed new information regarding Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. “She got transferred to a minimum security prison,” Schnitt said, despite her conviction as a sex offender. “It’s against BOP policy because she’s a convicted sex offender. And they’re not supposed to get minimum security prisons, which is an interesting detail because she’s getting a benefit, which means they’re offering her something to keep her mouth shut.”

Schnitt also revealed internal conflict within federal law enforcement over the release of said files. “The head of FBI [Kash Patel] really wants to… second-in-command [Dan Bongino] at FBI has been causing problems, because he’s like, ‘No, these [Epstein Files] have to be released.’ He added, “The FBI wants them out. The top two guys that will do it. But they work for Bondi, so… Bondi wants whatever Trump wants. Internally there’s a lot of conflict.”

Despite public assurances that the government has been transparent, Schnitt admitted that nothing substantive has been revealed: “Whatever they’ve released has already been publicly released anyway, so they haven’t released anything new. Even though they were the ones that were claiming that they were going to release everything.”

Another tidbit on the Epstein files has made news-- Mark Epstein (the brother of Jeffrey Epstein) made a public statement to shut down one of the most controversial interpretations of newly released Epstein estate emails, issuing a statement insisting that the now-viral “Bubba” reference in a 2018 exchange with his brother Jeffrey had nothing to do with former President Bill Clinton. In the statement, Epstein said the exchange was being misread entirely. “They were simply part of a humorous private exchange between two brothers and were never meant for public release or to be interpreted as serious remarks,” he wrote. He added, “For the avoidance of doubt, the reference to ‘Bubba’ in this correspondence is not, in any way, a reference to former President Bill Clinton.”

Other messages now public paint a darker and more politically treacherous picture. In a 2019 email to author Michael Wolff, Jeffrey Epstein claimed that Trump “knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” Another email, sent in 2011 to Ghislaine Maxwell, alleges Trump spent hours at Epstein’s house with one of his sex-trafficking victims.

Despite the protestations of the White House, the latest revelations are damaging to Trump and the pressure seems to be on the rise. On Friday night, he launched into a caustic Truth Social tirade, complete with anti-transgender rhetoric, pulling his endorsement for and attacking Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of his staunchest allies, after she joined a bipartisan move to force a House vote compelling the DOJ to release all unclassified Epstein files. 

 

Kim Kardashian's TV Show Gets Trashed by the Critics

To be fair, Kim Kardashian is not an actress-- she is basically a reality internet star who got famous when her sex tape with Ray J was leaked on the internet. She filed a lawsuit against a distributor for selling copies of the tape, despite many in the industry telling her that the suit had no merit.  But guess what?  She dropped the lawsuit three months later (just as sales were peaking) in exchange for a financial settlement (i.e., a cut of the profits, perhaps?).  A mere four months later, her reality show debuted on cable TV.  Numerous media outlets later criticized her and her family for using the sex tape's release as a publicity stunt to promote their forthcoming reality show. 

Kardashian tried to raise her profile as an activist in 2017 during a visit to Uganda.  She was widely criticized for lending her celebrity to legitimize an increasingly authoritarian government, which had recently begun cracking down on political opponents and gay people.  Two years later, it was reported that she began studying for the bar exam (without going to law school).  Two years after that, she passed the "baby bar" on her fourth attempt.  After a further four years of "study," Kardashian failed to pass the actual bar exam.  But now, she is trying her hand at being an actress . . . I'll give you one guess on how that has turned out.

The reviews of Ryan Murphy's divorce drama have been universally horrible.  On Rotten Tomatoes, the show has garnered a shocking 4% rating.

The Guardian's zero-star review was titled "Kim Kardashian’s Divorce Drama is Fascinatingly, Existentially Terrible."  For context, I should tell you that the Guardian (in its 75 years of reviewing TV programs) has only given out two other zero-star reviews.  On the reality star's performance:  "Kim K as Allura . . . is as expressionless as you might expect, but is at least inoffensively useless."  On the overall cast: "No one seems to know what they’re doing; the performances seem to respond to about nine different ideas of what the show is and the plots are dismal. The trio (“You’re the best divorce lawyers in town – maybe the country”) wrap up multiple cases in the time it takes Kim K’s nail varnish to dry."  The show has also been derided for a jarring obsession with brand names (“Let’s get those Goyard travel cases and start stuffing!”), conspicuous consumption (“Oh my God – didn’t this belong to Elizabeth Taylor?”), and a concept of female empowerment (“I settled … Did I not love myself enough?”) that would have shamed the Spice Girls thirty years ago.

Empire magazine said that Kardashian performance makes "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" look like Citizen Kane.  "Then there’s Kim Kardashian herself, the show’s inexplicable lead. In one early scene, an absurd number of candles are lit around her, presumably to create the illusion of emotion on her otherwise bored face. “She’s a dominatrix, I love that for her,” says Kardashian at one point, yet no “love” or expression of any kind is apparent. So wooden is her acting that the furniture around her looks positively alive by comparison," it added.

The Hollywood Reporter said that Kardashian’s performance was "stiff and affectless without a single authentic note."

USA Today said "the dialogue is stilted to the point of laughability . . . the plots are offensively dull and idiotic, and . . . it’s all wrapped in expensive and tasteless fashion."

You get the idea-- no need to pile on.  Good luck to Kim K in her future endeavors.