‘So Easy I Was Cruising’: Teammate Says Penn’s Trans Swimmer Boasted After Destroying Competition

A second member of the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team has reportedly come forward to speak about the calamitous effect teammate Lia Thomas, a biological man, has had on the team while Thomas smashes women’s records in competitions and leaves the women far behind. The teammate told Outkick that Thomas bragged after winning the 200 freestyle at the University of Akron Zippy Invitational, “That was so easy, I was cruising,” and after winning the 500 freestyle but disappointed with the time, boasted, “At least I’m still No. 1 in the country” in front of teammates.

Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas

In November, Thomas smashed the record in the 200 free time and the second-fastest 500 free time, with both times breaking Penn program records. Over the weekend, Thomas won the 1650 free by a whopping 38 seconds, the 500 free by 12 seconds, and the 200 free by seven seconds.

“Well, obviously she’s No. 1 in the country because she’s at a clear physical advantage after having gone through male puberty and getting to train with testosterone for years. Of course you’re No. 1 in the country when you’re beating a bunch of females. That’s not something to brag about,” the teammate commented.

The teammate said her fellow women teammates were crying on the Akron pool deck because they knew they had no chance of winning with Thomas competing. She said, “They feel so discouraged because no matter how much work they put in it, they’re going to lose. Usually, they can get behind the blocks and know they out-trained all their competitors and they’re going to win and give it all they’ve got. Now they’re having to go behind the blocks knowing no matter what, they do not have the chance to win. I think that it’s really getting to everyone.”

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The Log4Shell 0-day exploit, how bad is it really?

Log4Shell is the name given to a critical zero-day vulnerability that surfaced last Thursday when it was exploited in the wild in remote-code compromises against Minecraft servers. The source of the vulnerability was Log4J, a logging utility used by thousands if not millions of apps, including those used inside just about every enterprise on the planet. The Minecraft servers were the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

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Diners leave $4,400 tip, then server is fired by Arkansas restaurant

A server who received a $4,400 tip by a “$100 dinner club” was promptly fired by her Arkansas restaurant, one of her customers said.

OVEN & TAP , 215 S. MAIN ST., BENTONVILLE, AR 72712, 479.268.5884

The concept of the club was for each diner to leave a $100 tip as a way to pay it forward. Grant Wise, whose company hosted a real estate conference in Arkansas, orchestrated the act as he and others dined at Oven and Tap in Bentonville.

“We knew servers really hit hard through COVID and it was something that (a friend) had come up with to help give back,” Wise told KFSM.

Wise told KNWA he called the restaurant before they dined to confirm its tipping policy. One of their two servers, Ryan Brandt, was in tears when Wise informed her of their act after their meal.

Diners in Wise’s group, as well as some who contributed money online, all chipped in money to tip a total of $4,400.

Rebecca Soto, who filmed the interaction between Wise and Brandt, said it was “wonderful” to give back.

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Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve been sharing recipes for years and years now. For some time I have been making my own laundry detergent. I wanted to share this recipe today because it works very, very well and saves our household a tremendous amount of money every year.

Ingredients for Laundry Powder:

3 (5.5 oz) bars Fels-Naptha Laundry Bar – 3 x $0.97 = $2.91 *
1 (65 oz) box Borax Detergent Booster – $4.47
1 (55 oz) box A&H Super Washing Soda – $4.12
2 (8 oz) boxes A&H Baking Soda – 2 x $0.67 = $1.34 **
2 (3 lb) boxes OxiClean Free (No Dyes or Perfumes) – 2 x $6.72 = $13.44 ***
1 (21 oz) bottles Purex Crystals Fragrance Booster (Optional) – $3.97 ****

Total: $30.25 (6 to 8 months supply)

Notes:
* Zote laundry bar or Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castille can be substituted quite easily
** Original recipe was 2 cups 2 x 8oz is close enough
*** Quite often we will use Dollar Tree’s LA’s Totally Awesome
**** Optional but sometimes my shirts smell a little funny without the fragrance

Step 1 – Make Powdered Detergent
First, you’ll break down the bars of Fels-Naptha into fine pellets of laundry soap. The pieces need to be small enough that they will dissolve readily in your washing machine.

I like to do this by chopping the Fels-Naptha bars into big chunks, then blending them in my Blendtec along with a scoop of OxiClean. (The OxiClean just helps keep the laundry soap pieces from sticking to each other too much.)

If you don’t have a high-powered blender, you can use your food processor or even a cheese grater to break up the soap. (Grating soap by hand is quite the workout, but it gets the job done!) Recently I have been buying Zote Soap Flakes to make assembly easier. (17.6oz – $3.00)

Step 2 – Mix The Ingredients
Next, you’ll combine all the detergent ingredients. In my experience, the easiest way to do this is to use a couple of trash bags!

Pour the laundry soap pellets, borax, washing soda, baking soda, OxiClean, and Purex Crystals (if using) into one trash bag.

Tie the trash bag shut, then place the tied bag into another trash bag. Tie off the second bag, then push, tumble, and roll the bags around for a few minutes to mix all the ingredients.

Step 3 – Transfer To A Container
When you’re done mixing, just cut a hole in the corner of both bags and pour the detergent into a big jar or container for storage.

If you live in a humid area, make sure to choose an airtight container so that your detergent stays dry! You can also toss a few silica gel packets into the detergent to help absorb any moisture.

How Much Detergent Should I Use?
For a standard wash load, use 2 tablespoons of homemade laundry detergent.
For large or heavily soiled loads, use 2 1/2 tablespoons.
For small loads, use 1 1/2 tablespoons.
This detergent works perfectly in any washing machine, including high-efficiency machines! (Bonus HE Tip: Skip the dispenser and toss the detergent right into the washer!)

Homemade Laundry Soap – Trial Size Version
1 bar grated Fels Naptha soap
3 cups Borax
2 cups washing soda
3/4 cup baking soda
4 1/2 cups oxygen bleach
1 cup (heaping) fabric softener crystals – store-bought or Homemade (optional)

“The Pirate Bay Can’t Be Stopped ,” Co-Founder Says

The Pirate Bay quietly turned 18 this year. The site survived several shutdown attempts and remains online. Nonetheless, one of the lawyers who fought The Pirate Bay in court says that the lawsuits and raids were worth it. Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde disagrees and believes that the torrent site can’t be stopped by rightsholders.

This year, The Pirate Bay officially reached adulthood, which is quite an achievement considering the immense legal pressure it has faced over the years.

The site was launched in 2003 under the wings of the now-disbanded pro-culture organization “Piratbyrån”, which is Swedish for Bureau of Piracy.

The group was formed by political activists and hackers in the same year. By then, many of the members had already launched other web projects challenging political, moral, and power structures. The Pirate Bay fitted this category and became a synonym for file-sharing in the following years.

The site remains online today but it’s not without scars. Swedish police tried to shut the site down twice, raiding dozens of servers. This ultimate goal failed but local authorities did prosecute the site’s three co-founders, who all served time in prison for their involvement.

This week the Swedish news site M3 ran a piece on TPB, bringing together some key players from the Pirate Bay trial. On one side there’s entertainment industry lawyer Monique Wadsted, who represented Hollywood, and Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde chimed in as well.

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Tech Firms race to fix software flaw

A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool — one quickly exploited in the online game Minecraft — is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organizations around the world.

“The internet’s on fire right now,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. “People are scrambling to patch,” he said, “and all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it.” He said Friday morning that in the 12 hours since the bug’s existence was disclosed that it had been “fully weaponized,” meaning malefactors had developed and distributed tools to exploit it.

The flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years. It was uncovered in a utility that’s ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. Unless it is fixed, it grants criminals, spies and programming novices alike easy access to internal networks where they can loot valuable data, plant malware, erase crucial information and much more.

“I’d be hard-pressed to think of a company that’s not at risk,” said Joe Sullivan, chief security officer for Cloudflare, whose online infrastructure protects websites from malicious actors. Untold millions of servers have it installed, and experts said the fallout would not be known for several days.

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7 Times Rock Bands Were Sued By Album Cover Models

One of the biggest controversies in rock music this year has been the lawsuit against Nirvana by Spencer Elden, who’s depicted as a baby on the cover of the band’s 1991 album Nevermind. But, this isn’t the first time a band has found themselves in this type of situation.

There have actually been a ton of lawsuits against bands over album artwork throughout musical history, but for the sake of keeping things related to the case of Nirvana and Elden, we’re focusing on the ones that were filed against bands by the people, or models, who’re actually featured on the covers.

Perhaps one of the most famous examples is The Rolling Stones’ 1978 album Some Girls, which marked their transition toward disco and funk rock, and also originally had some very famous faces on the cover in addition to the band members. The group of women and their family members sued the Stones, who ultimately decided to put out a different version of the cover with only the musicians’ faces instead.

“On the original album there were old-fashioned film stars, but because we were stupid and never got permission from them, we got stopped a lot from using them,” Mick Jagger later told Yahoo! of the artwork.

That’s a situation where the band didn’t actually ask permission to use the images, which is the same for several others on our list as well. However, Elden’s case is unique in that his parents were the ones who gave the band consent to use his photo on Nevermind, as he was only a baby during the photoshoot.

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Markeith Loyd sentencing: Jury recommends death penalty for convicted cop killer

“We the jury find the aggravating factors are sufficient to warrant a possible sentence of death … answer yes,” a jury representative stated.

Loyd asked for the judge to sentence him today before he was ordered out of the courtroom. Loyd said, “I love you” to his family before leaving.

Loyd was on the run for the murder of Sade Dixon when he killed Lt. Debra Clayton in January of 2017.

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