Sunday's Best Deals: Fitbit, Game of Thrones, Nonfiction eBooks, and More

Game of Thrones seasons 1-6 on Blu-ray, deals on nonfiction eBooks, a 40″ refurb Vizio sound system, and more lead Sunday’s best lifestyle deals.

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SEGA Dreamcast Bag: The Ultimate Shoulder System

Of all of the consoles I’ve owned over the years, the one I think I was most passionate about was the SEGA Dreamcast. It offered state-of-the-art hardware, groundbreaking graphical capabilities, and most of all an amazing slate of truly special games. Classics like Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Samba de Amigo, and Soul Calibur, were all birthed on this console.

If you’re a fan of the Dreamcast like me, you might want to grab one of these nifty shoulder bags, that looks just like the console.

The bag is a bit smaller than the actual Dreamcast console, measuring in at almost exactly the same size as the console. Plus, it’s bound to weigh much less than carrying around an actual Dreamcast over your shoulder. And that one won’t have any room inside of it for your keys, phone, and other small items. Of course, since it’s smaller than a real Dreamcast, don’t expect to carry your console inside of it.

Photo: @Pome

You can pick up the SEGA Dreamcast Shoulder Bag now over at NCSX for about $60(USD).

Susan Rice: I Didn't Do Anything 'Untoward' With Intelligence

Susan Rice said on Sunday that she didn’t do anything “untoward” with the intelligence she received about Russian interference in the 2016 election during her tenure as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser.

In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Rice reiterated a point she has made previously: that she did nothing improper or illegal in her handling of intelligence intercepts about American citizens’ contacts with Russia.

The dispute stems from the lead-up to last year’s presidential election, when Rice asked the NSA to “unmask” ― or reveal ― the names of the Americans involved in those contacts.

There’s nothing illegal or inherently improper about her unmasking request. And it stands to reason that the national security adviser would want to know the names of Americans who were in contact with Russian intelligence officials during an extremely tense moment in U.S.-Russian relations.

Nevertheless, President Donald Trump, in response to a leading question from a New York Times reporter, suggested earlier this month that Rice may have broken the law. There is no evidence that Rice did and few, if any, others have echoed Trump’s assertion.

Here’s the relevant section of Rice’s CNN interview:

ZAKARIA: One of the elements of fallout from Russia’s attempt to influence the American election was that there was a certain amount of intelligence work being done on Russia. Our intelligence agencies were listening to what Russian government officials or Russian intelligence officials were saying. Donald Trump has accused you of trying to unmask the Americans on the other end of those conversations in an attempt to implicate the Trump campaign or people associated with Trump in some kind of collusion with Russia. What is your reaction to that? It’s an extraordinary charge by the President of the United States.

RICE:  Well Fareed, it’s absolutely false. I’ve addressed this previously. I think now we’ve had subsequently members of Congress on the intelligence committees on both sides of the aisle take a look at the information that apparently was the basis for Chairman [Devin] Nunes’ concern and say publicly that they didn’t see anything that was unusual or untoward. I did my job, which was to protect the American people, and I did it faithfully and with― to the best of my ability, and never did I do anything that was untoward with respect to the intelligence I received.

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Trump Administration Defends Inviting President Who Admitted Murdering People To Washington

President Donald Trump’s decision to invite Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, a populist demagogue who has admitted to personally killing people accused of crimes, to Washington is a sign that “the issues facing us, developing out of North Korea, are so serious that we need a cooperation at some level from as many partners in the area as possible,” Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

Priebus is “not so sure” the invitation “is a matter of honoring” Duterte, he said. But foreign leaders covet presidential invitations to D.C.; receiving them has long been regarded as a sign that a leader is in Washington’s good graces. And there’s little indication that the conversation in which Trump invited Duterte to Washington was anything but friendly. Trump had a “very friendly conversation with Mr. Duterte,” according to a statement issued by the White House Saturday evening. The two presidents “discussed the fact that the Philippines is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs,” the statement said.

Human rights still matter, Priebus assured ABC’s Jonathan Karl. Duterte, who took office in June 2016 after promising to kill tens of thousands of drug users and other criminals, has overseen a campaign of extrajudicial murder that has taken the lives of thousands of Filipinos, almost none of whom had actually been convicted of capital crimes. Police in the Philippines, whose units have historically been funded and trained by the U.S., now often simply shoot drug suspects.

A man who said he was a member of a Duterte-backed death squad in Davao, where Duterte was mayor for 21 years, testified to a Phillippine Senate committee in September that Duterte had once killed a justice department agent with an Uzi submachine gun. Duterte, who denies those allegations and sometimes claims that he has not killed anyone, remains extremely popular. But maybe the two leaders’ mutual affection isn’t so surprising. At a campaign rally last January, Trump boasted that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

Here’s the video of Priebus’ defense of his boss:

To learn more about extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, check out this great photo essay:

And you can find out more about Duterte in Adrian Chen’s New Yorker story:

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Trump Administration Still Considering Making It Easier To Sue Media

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President Donald Trump’s administration on Sunday continued its assault on press freedom and attacks on the media, with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus reiterating Trump’s desire to make it easier to sue media outlets who publish stories unfavorable to the president.

“I think it’s something we have looked at, and how that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story,” Priebus told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “But when you have articles out there that have no basis or fact, and we’re sitting here on 24/7 cable companies, writing stories about constant contacts with Russia, and all these other matters.”

In his attacks against the media throughout his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed that he would “open up our libel laws” in order to “have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.”

“I’m going to open up our libel laws, so when [newspapers] write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said last year. “When The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”

As president, Trump made the threat again last month, after criticizing “the failing” New York Times.

“You think the president should be able to sue The New York Times for stories he doesn’t like?” Karl asked Priebus on Sunday, referring to Trump’s tweet.

“I think that newspapers and news agencies need to be more responsible with how they report the news,” Priebus said. “I’m so tired.”

When Karl pointed out that there is a difference between critiquing media outlets’ coverage and suing them, Priebus launched into a tirade about reporting on the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, which the administration has repeatedly tried to deny.

“I think this is a frustration of unnamed sources, of things that the FBI has told me personally [are] complete b.s. written in a newspaper article, in my office one on one, ‘This here is not true,’” Priebus said. “And guess what? It is sitting there on the front page, so how is it possible? And what do we have, 24/7 cable about a story about intelligence that the actual intelligence agency says is not true, and yet we deal with it every day.”

When Trump refers to “opening up libel laws,” it is not entirely clear what he means and whether he has the authority to do so. As HuffPost’s Cristian Farias noted last year, libel laws are controlled by individual states. The only change the president could make would be to amend the First Amendment, which he cannot do on his own and which ensures important protections for press freedom.

But of course, that has not stopped Trump from making threats against and undermining the media, a staple of his campaign and presidency so far. On Saturday night, he renewed his attacks against the “fake news” media at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

See Logan in black-and-while in theaters for one night only

It seems it’s becoming a bit of a trend recently for certain movies with dystopian or western themes to get special edition cuts in monochrome. The most notable example is last year’s Black and Chrome Edition of Mad Max: Fury Road, but now the recent hit Logan is getting the treatment. James Mangold, director of the final Wolverine movie with … Continue reading

30 Years Of Gay Style: From Disco Chic To Hipster Bears

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The Musical Legacy of Gay Bathhouses

Sex usually comes with its own soundtrack, natural or synthesized, but the music of gay bathhouses, saunas and sex clubs in the 1970s has had an uncommon pull on contemporary dance music. Dropping its little terrycloth towel at the intersection of classic disco, extended funk jams, smooth vocal R&B, spacey jazz and early electronic experimentation, and now streaked with the nostalgic gleam of outlaw sexual liberation, the cruising culture of the post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS gay era has become a free-floating metaphor of sorts for unfettered physical communion, subcultural freedom and wild, wild nights. When gay men steamed up, society’s shackles slid off.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Ben Heck's logic gate board game: Fun with LCD displays

With Karen’s laser cutting design skills and Felix’s soldering, the team has created a prototype of the logic board game using Karen’s magnetic clasp design. Now it’s time to give the concept a test run with help from The Game Craft proprietor JT…

Polar M460 bike computer comes with GPS capability

polar-m460Are all bike computers created equal? Not really, as Polar has come up with the Polar M460 which will be the culmination of wearable sports and fitness technology knowledge which has been amassed since the past four decades. The Polar M460 will arrive in a sleek, all-black and fiber-like surface texture that will deliver an improved button grip, while being equipped with integrated GPS, additional power meter compatibility, advanced power metrics and smart coaching, and Strava Live Segments. In other words, the $179.90 Polar M460 is being marketed as the ideal training tool for cyclists who would like to achieve their fitness or cycling goals. There is far more value to that price point than meets the eye, since it will be accompanied by a two-month Strava Premium membership.

This versatile Polar M460 will boast of reliable, built-in GPS and barometer-based inclinometer, while sporting compatibility with a wide range of third party power meters and advanced cycling power metrics. Among them include notable names like Training Peaks’ Normalized Power, Intensity Factor and Training Stress Score, in an effort to make training more efficient. As cyclists remain connected, the Polar M460 will also boast of smart notifications for incoming calls, texts, calendar alerts as well as social media updates, in addition to Strava Live Segments so that cyclists can check out their stats in real-time, allowing them to achieve peak performance while sharing their experiences with one another over social media.

Just in case you feel that you would not want to go out cycling that day because of a slight drizzle and would not like to damage the Polar M460, fret not. The Polar M460 has IPX7 rating water resistance, in addition to a battery life that delivers up to 16 hours of training as well as a front LED light for additional safety.

Press Release
[ Polar M460 bike computer comes with GPS capability copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]