Wow. A single Republican senator has a spine after all.

Utah Senator Mitt Romney says he will vote in favor of the article of impeachment on abuse of power against President Donald John Trump.

“The president is guilty of a flagrant abuse of public trust,” said Romney just now.

“Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine.”

FULL REMARKS -- @SenatorRomney: "The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did." pic.twitter.com/fbIhPG12IO

 CSPAN (@cspan) February 5, 2020

Romney: "Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented & disregard what I believe my oath & the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke & the censure of my own conscience.”

"The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did."

Heck yeah.

FULL SPEECH: Sen. Romney says he will vote in favor of the article of impeachment on abuse of power against President Trump.

"With my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me."

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/05/romney-to-vote-in-favor-of-art.html

From 1965 to 2003 the BBC aired a series called Tomorrow's World, and the segment above, predicting homes in 2020, describes Nest, Alexa, and other IoT conveniences to a tee.

The futurist in the video, Christine MacNulty, is founder and CEO of Applied Futures. Some of her predictions are yet to be seen, so I'll just have to wait for my window to turn into a wall. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/05/futurist-from-1989-is-astonish.html

Learn how to make delicious, healthful cotton candy with this machine made from a cheap USB fan, a plastic bucket, an aluminum soda can, and a few other scrap parts.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/05/how-to-make-your-own-cotton-ca.html

I've linked to Michael Gardi's retrocomputing replicas and recreations quite a few times. Here's a list:

Michael just finished a new project! He wrote to me and said:

Well it's a new year and I have a new project to share, something a little different. Rather than a straight replica, this time I have created a version of the computer described in the book How to Build a Working Digital Computer, by Edward Alcosser, James P. Phillips, and Allen M. Wolk, and published in 1967. In it they show how to construct such a computer using "simple inexpensive components usually found around the house or in a neighborhood electrical parts store." A very cool book.

Now completed, my version is one of only a few known implementations. I tried to limit myself to technologies that would have been available in the late '60s, but used modern fabrication techniques like 3D printing and cheap PCB manufacturing to build it.

Details are posted on Hackaday Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/766826.html

We all have at least one in our homes. We spend an inordinate amount of time with it. And we’d be lost without it. Yet the less we think about it, the better.

Yes, we’re talking about your toilet. And while you’d rather just ignore it, give it a moment of your time right now. And maybe even throw a dollar or two it's way. Because seriously...your throne needs some love.

Below, you’ll find 10 different items designed to make your time in the WC a little more pleasant. Just consider it for a second. It’s the least you can do for the porcelain god that does so much for you.

GlowBowl Motion Activated Toilet Nightlight: 2-Pack - $23.99 (Originally $32.50)

The GlowBowl helps you avoid the shock of turning on bathroom lights in the middle of the night. In addition to a rainbow of color options, this motion-activated LED light that hooks just inside your bowl also has 5 different dimmer settings, so you’ll never end up blinded by your 2 a.m. bathroom excursions. And since most houses have at least two bathrooms, this 2-pack means you’re set.

Original IllumiBowl Toilet Night Light - $10.99 (Originally $15)

If dimmer settings don’t matter, but size does, the illumniBowl might be your toilet nightlight of choice. As seen on Shark Tank, this bowl light clocks in about half the size of the GlowBowl has eight different light colors and an improved motion sensor.

Motion-Activated LED Toilet Light - $10.99 (Originally $19.99) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/your-toilet-is-your-friend-th.html

There are some genuine LOL moments on this Late Show with Stephen Colbert segment where he dispatches Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to the Senate to find out what the hell is going on with the impeachment trial.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/triumph-the-insult-comic-dog-v.html

With only 62% of precincts reporting in, Bernie Sanders has 28,220 votes in the Iowa Democratic Party caucus, followed closely by Pete Buttigieg on 27,030 and then Elizabeth Warren with 22,254. Joe Biden trails a distant fourth on 14,176 votes, only a little ahead of Amy Klobuchar.

Buttigieg, however, has more delegates pledged in the complicated and suddenly very controversial caucus, according to CNN.

After a long night and full day of rancor, confusion and anger over delayed caucus results, the Iowa Democratic Party offered the first round of official results at 5 p.m. EST.

With more than a third of precincts still to report in, the winner is still anyone's guess. But Sanders and especially Buttigieg can be happy with the result. With the vote so divided, Warren's strong third will be a relief to her supporters.

Biden's dismal fourth, however, is the first real sign of trouble for his campaign, otherwise atop opinion polls nationwide in the race to become the Democratic challenger to Trump in the 2020 general election.

Most of the problems stemmed from a caucus reporting app that failed catastrophically on the night. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/sanders-wins-iowa-caucus-popul.html

I have an earlier version of this Anker PowerCore charger and it's the one I use most frequently. It's small and light and will charge my Nintendo Switch as well as my iPhone. Amazon has it on sale right now. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/anker-powercore-10000mah-porta.html

Content creator and filmmaker Ani Acopian says: "I wasn’t having much luck with dating apps so I partnered with @amazon to make a better one."

This is Amazon Dating!

(No, it isn't real. Yet.)

(Thanks, UPSO!) Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/amazon-dating.html

“The blessing of military weapons is not reflected in the tradition of the Orthodox Church and does not correspond to the content of the Rite,” reads a new document on the website of the Moscow patriarchate of the the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russian priests should stop blessing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction that can inflict indiscriminate loss of life, according to new guidelines being discussed.

It's an unusual display of independence by the church.

From Reuters:

During two decades in power, President Vladimir Putin has aligned himself with the Orthodox Church, which has also developed closer ties with the ministry of defense. Russian priests have long appeared in images sprinkling holy water on submarines, ballistic missiles, Soyuz space rockets and other pieces of hardware as part of rituals to bless them. But some of that is set to stop if the church approves a document drawn up by an Orthodox Church commission.

“The blessing of military weapons is not reflected in the tradition of the Orthodox Church and does not correspond to the content of the Rite,” the document, on the Moscow patriarchate’s website, says.

Blessing or sanctifying weapons that can kill an “indefinite number of people” must be excluded from pastoral practice, it says. The proposals will be discussed until June 1 and the public should also take part in the debate, the church’s Moscow branch said.

Read more: Russian priests should stop blessing nukes: church proposal [Tom Balmforth, reuters.com/]

IMAGE: mospat.ru. “On 1st February 2020, the 11th anniversary of his enthronement, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia officiated at the Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/russian-priests-must-stop-bles.html

Until the latter part of the 1900s, vibrators were big industrial-looking objects that might have scared off many a humans back in the day. Sexologist and curator of the Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum Dr. Carol Queen shows us some of these beauties as she answers questions from Atlas Obscura about vibrators of the late 1800s to the 1970s. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/vibrators-werent-always-the.html

In Connecticut, police are trying to identify a man captured on surveillance camera stealing about $17,000 worth of merchandise from a gas station.

Cops say the guy got a job there, then proceeded to steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of stolen lottery tickets, cigarettes, and cash on his very first, and only, solo overnight shift.

Then, the suspect disappeared.

From AP:

The man also stole his employment folder, which contained his personal information, so the store’s owner does not even know the worker’s name, Hamden police said in a statement Tuesday.

Police responded to the Go On Gas store late last month.

The owner told investigators he used an app on his cellphone to view the store security cameras and noticed that the new employee had left.

MORE: Hamden Gas Station Employee Accused of Stealing Items Worth $17k on First Day

[nbcconnecticut.com —PHOTO: Hamden, CT police] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/new-guy-at-gas-station-stole.html

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/tennessee-lawmaker-drinks-from.html

I first learned of Philadelphia Printworks because of a sweatshirt they designed for the Brooklyn Museum's showing of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963–1983, an absolutely essential exhibition of black artists' work at the intersection of activism, empowerment, and cultural pride. (The exhibition is currently on view at San Francisco's de Young Museum.) Philadelphia Printworks describes itself as "a social justice heritage brand and screen printing workshop."

I bought the "Soul of a Nation" crewneck and also the "People's Free Food Program hoodie" celebrating the Black Panthers' influential community program launched in 1969 that fed thousands of children every day.

"Soul of a Nation"

"Octavia Butler" by Nick James

"Freedom Trail/Freedom Summer" Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/fantastic-social-justice-hoodi.html

A college student loan processing company sent thousands of copies of the same statement to an Ohio family. An estimated 55,000 copies, to be precise.

Dan Cain said he was suspicious when a postal worker in Twinsburg, Ohio said he couldn't retrieve his mail the normal way, and soon he saw two USPS workers wheeling out two huge bins of mail, all addressed to his Twinsburg address.

“I was shocked, are you kidding me, who makes that kind of mistake,” Cain told local TV news

The College Avenue Student Loan Company made a mistake, and says they used the wrong interest rate to calculate the payment. So, all 55,000 of them were incorrect.

Excerpt from cleveland19.com:

Cain counted 79 plastic bins of mail each containing roughly 700 letters, all exactly the same, a statement for the student loan, he and his wife Dee, had taken for his daughters college tuition.

Thinking he was out of options, it took 2 trips in his truck to get all the letters to his home where they are now sitting in his garage.

The student loan company apologized for the mistake, blaming a glitch in a new outgoing mail system, and his postal carrier later told him he may have been able to tell the clerk at the post office to return the mail.

“I just may start a fire, a bonfire, and burn it all,” Cain said with a chuckle.

“We are working with Dan directly on a remedy, including picking up the mail from him if possible and a statement credit for the inconvenience,” the company’s chief operating officer, Tim Staley, said in an email sent to reporters today. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/couple-receives-55000-duplica.html

Illegitimate U.S. President Donald John Trump is experiencing a lift in the polls, despite being manifestly corrupt and unfit, and in the middle of an impeachment trial.

His public approval rating has hit the highest level of his presidency, 49%, in Gallup’s poll of registered voters.

The poll was conducted during Trump’s ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate, and found the public evenly divided at 50% on whether Trump deserves to be elected to a second term in the White House in November.

From CNBC:

Trump was boosted by increased approval among independent as well as Republican voters, according to the survey released Tuesday. The poll of 1,033 adults was conducted from Jan. 16 to 29, during Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.

Trump’s approval rating among his fellow GOP voters now stands at 94% percent, 6 points higher than registered by the last Gallup poll.

And 42% of independents approve of the job he is doing, up 3 points.

Trump’s approval by Democrats fell to 7% — 3 points lower than a prior survey.

Gallup’s survey found the public evenly divided at 50% on the question of whether Trump deserves to be elected to a second term in the White House in November.

The poll, which had a margin of error of 4 percentage points, comes on the heels of other public surveys that have shown Trump’s popularity steadily creeping upward in recent months.

Read more:

• Gallup poll data, Tue. Feb. 4, 2020. • Trump approval rating hits new high in Gallup poll, despite impeachment trial[ Tue, Feb 4 2020, 12:12 PM EST, Yelena Dzhanova and Kevin Breuninger, CNBC] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/despite-impeachment-trump-app.html

The Trump White House says it is working with U.S. technology companies to develop software for next-generation 5G telecommunications networks, in an effort to reduce reliance on China’s Huawei.

Companies involved in the effort include Dell, Microsoft and AT&T, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Seeking to blunt the dominance by China’s Huawei Technologies Co., the White House is working with U.S. technology companies to create advanced software for next-generation 5G telecommunications networks.

The plan would build on efforts by some U.S. telecom and technology companies to agree on common engineering standards that would allow 5G software developers to run code atop machines that come from nearly any hardware manufacturer. That would reduce, if not eliminate, reliance on Huawei equipment.

The end game is government/carrier control of all communications. Journalists need to understand this stuff better. https://t.co/W7KI6fP0UL

 Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) February 4, 2020

Read more: U.S. Pushing Effort to Develop 5G Alternative to Huawei [wsj.com, Bob Davis and Drew FitzGerald, Feb. 4, 2020 10:53 am ET]

[via AntDeRosa] Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/white-house-pushes-u-s-tech-f.html

Update: Nevada Dem. Party abandons the app, 1025AM Pacific time/125PM Eastern.

An Iowa Caucus disaster in 3 bullets:

• Precinct captains were first allowed to test the app 16 days before the caucus • And they only got detailed instructions at 1pm yesterday, • Then the two-factor verification broke.

“We have the name and screenshots of the Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night, it is worse than you could possibly imagine,” tweets Jason Koebler of VICE News.

Get a load of this:

Wow.

"On the ground, it went great," Green, the chair of the Democractic presidential primary caucuses in Iowa's Fremont Township and Lone Tree precincts and an IT systems administrator for a financial services firm, told Vice News:

"I got pissed off four years ago at how my precinct was run, which is why I volunteered to do it this time around," he said. "We had 113 people and everyone was pleasant. I had to recruit a secretary once we were going—I couldn't find one ahead of time. Everyone was patient and in good cheer. I know that's not likely the case today. My girlfriend, especially, is distraught. She has poured her life and soul into this thing, and for naught."

Green, like many other precinct chairs, faced problems reporting the results of the caucus to Iowa's Democratic Party using the app. Due to a coding error, the app, created by a company called Shadow Inc., wasn't reporting the correct data, according to the Iowa Democratic Party.

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/shadow-app-that-failed-in.html

Today, Twitter released a statement that says the platform has suspended “a large network of fake accounts,” as well as many others “located in a wide range of countries,” for abusing an API feature that allowed them to match phone numbers to usernames.

Here's the official tweet.

We recently discovered an issue that allowed bad actors to match a specific phone number with the corresponding accounts on Twitter. We quickly corrected this issue and are sorry this happened. You can learn more about our investigation here: https://t.co/Z6Q4geQ8jo

 Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) February 3, 2020

“We observed a particularly high volume of requests coming from individual IP addresses located within Iran, Israel, and Malaysia,” the Twitter security bulletin says. “It is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors,” the post continued.

TechCrunch previously reported this same issue on December 24, which is also the day Twitter says that it “became aware” that the abuse was taking place, writes Devin Coldewey at TechCrunch.

Security researcher Ibrahim Balic found that a bug in Twitter’s Android app let him submit millions of phone numbers through an official API, which returned any associated user account.

Excerpt from today's TechCrunch report:

The feature is intended, if you have enabled it, to let friends who have your number look up your Twitter handle. But obviously submitting millions of numbers goes “beyond its intended use case.”

If you had turned this feature off, you weren’t affected by this bug. Fortunately for users in the EU this was opt-in there.

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/twitter-we-killed-a-large.html

I've watched Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood twice, and I appreciated more even the second time. So I enjoyed this "making of" documentary that Sony released to YouTube last week. It has interviews with all the principle actors and Tarantino himself, along with behind-the-scenes footage.

Image: YouTube Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/heres-a-30-minute-documentar.html