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The Philadelphia 76ers are the worst team in basketball, by design. Under general manager Sam Hinkie, the team has been unabashed in stockpiling players they hope will one day be great while barely even trying to win games in the meantime, since worse teams get better draft picks. (Previously) But those days may be over, as it seems the NBA itself has effectively forced the Sixers to hire an executive who will at least try to build a winning team. It's a rare, if not unprecedented, instance of a professional sports league stepping in to save a theoretically independent team from itself.
comment posted at 11:56 AM on Dec-8-15
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One Texas lawyer is helping companies opt out of workers’ compensation and write their own rules. What does it mean for injured workers?
comment posted at 8:57 AM on Oct-19-15
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Absolutely true plotlines from the latest season of Law & Order SVU. [single link imgur album]
comment posted at 9:09 AM on Aug-28-15

Four scathing restaurant reviews (Per Se, Eleven Madison Park, Chef's Table, and Masa) for the price of one! Or for the price of $3569.63, to be more accurate. In which Harper's intrepid restaurant critic gleefully excoriates to the dreams and excesses of New York’s most fashionable eateries.
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364 bills that have been introduced in [the US] Congress, ranked by acronym quality.
comment posted at 1:14 PM on Aug-3-15

The Onion has released the first installment of their newest series: EDGE.
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Reasonable Doubts About the Jury System Trial consultants allow the affluent to manipulate the biases of those who judge them, putting our justice up for sale. via The Atlantic
comment posted at 4:56 PM on Jun-18-15

Most people are aware of the (troublesome) official and unofficial drink sponsorship for alcoholic drinks in pop music of all sorts (see also: St. Ides ads by early 1990s rappers), but there are also (un)official cross marketing efforts in sodas. Coca-Cola is probably the most prominent on and prolific on the official side, who have even sponsored a series of "Coke DJ-Culture" singles and mixes a decade back from some significantly large names in electronic/dance and hip-hop circles. Now add to the mix "Doctor Pepper," a song by Diplo with South Korean superstar CL, Mad Decent’s own RiFF RAFF and Atlanta’s OG Maco. It was a quick song thrown together by CL and built from there, not (yet) the official summer anthem for Dr. Pepper.
comment posted at 5:26 PM on May-30-15

Don’t Call it a Tramp Stamp: How the Patriarchy Ruined My Tattoo
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It began with a walk-in. In August 2010 a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer approached Jonathan Bank, then the CIA’s station chief at the US embassy in Islamabad. He offered to tell the CIA where to find bin Laden in return for the reward that Washington had offered in 2001. Walk-ins are assumed by the CIA to be unreliable, and the response from the agency’s headquarters was to fly in a polygraph team. The walk-in passed the test. ‘So now we’ve got a lead on bin Laden living in a compound in Abbottabad, but how do we really know who it is?’ was the CIA’s worry at the time, the retired senior US intelligence official told me.

Seymour Hersh on new revelations about the operation to kill Osama bin Laden
comment posted at 1:51 PM on May-11-15

TEN YEARS TO MIDNIGHT. Jon Bois (previously) follows up on last year's agonizing, slow death of the NBA with its perfect, beautiful opposite.
comment posted at 3:32 PM on Apr-28-15

Mars might have liquid water, according to new findings We know Mars has water, and we also know that Mars once had liquid water (a whole ocean, in fact) but now it seems we may have evidence of liquid water today.
comment posted at 11:38 AM on Apr-14-15

Entrepreneur sets $70,000 year minimum wage for all his employees Dan Price, the owner of a credit card processing company, came across an article showing that making much less than $75,000/yr. greatly diminished the emotional well-being of earners, and decided to do something about it. He's embarked on a three year plan to increase the salaries of all employees making under $70,000, which for some of them will be double their current wages.
comment posted at 7:27 PM on Apr-14-15
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The Cuddly, Fluffy, Surreal World of Angora Show Bunnies [New York Times]

With beguiling beauty — and an arduous hair-care regimen — these rabbits compete to reach the height of perfection.

comment posted at 2:32 PM on Apr-8-15

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Has the Most Ferocious Lawyer in America Defending Him. Judy Clarke, the publicity-shy anti-death-penalty attorney, has defended the Unabomber, Susan Smith, and Jared Loughner, and successfully spared them capital punishment.
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The New York Times is reporting this morning that crash of the Germanwings plane on Tuesday in the French Alps that killed 150 people "most likely happened" because the co-pilot crashed the jet deliberately,
comment posted at 9:07 AM on Mar-26-15

Rap Battle: Hodor vs. Groot.
comment posted at 4:07 PM on Mar-25-15

Larry Tribe has a new client. (SLNYMag)
comment posted at 4:04 PM on Mar-25-15
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The government says Matt DeHart is an online child predator. He says that’s a ruse created because he discovered shocking CIA secrets and claims he was tortured by federal agents. The only thing that’s clear is that he’s in deep trouble.
comment posted at 12:04 PM on Mar-24-15

Today, the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division released its report on the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department, whose officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed Michael Brown in August 2014, prompting large-scale, nationwide protests, which only increased following a grand jury's choice not to indict Wilson for the killing.
comment posted at 1:43 PM on Mar-4-15
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How Madden Ratings Are Made (SL538)
comment posted at 1:17 PM on Feb-24-15

The Philadelphia 76ers are currently the worst team in basketball, but in terms of expected value, they are crushing.
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Jeb Bush has published all of the (unredacted) emails he sent and received as Governor.
comment posted at 2:07 PM on Feb-10-15

Sarah Hird answers the question, Why do Mammals Sleep? A winner is announced in the SMBC-inspired 2014 Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses.
comment posted at 2:15 PM on Feb-10-15

A Jewish magazine is testing an unusual solution for toxic internet comments. I think we can all agree that this proposal is ridiculous. Please leave your toxicity in the comments.
comment posted at 1:59 PM on Feb-9-15

One year later, has Michael Sam been frozen out of the NFL?

When I was a kid, I always outsmarted myself in multiple-choice tests. I'd always get it wrong because I over-thought the question every time. In my adult life I've learned that the most obvious answer is generally the right one. The answer to the question I've posed to so many - Why is Michael Sam not with an NFL team? - is also likely the most obvious one: because he's openly gay. Defensive ends with the same size and the same speed - yet with less production in college and the NFL preseason - are in the NFL and Sam is not because he's gay and he just won't stop being gay.

comment posted at 8:26 AM on Feb-9-15