Chris Ulmer is a special needs teacher in Florida who posted a video of how he starts each school day: complimenting every one of his students. In the video, which has been viewed over a million times since it was posted on Sunday, Ulmer takes the time to pay several compliments to each and every one of the eight students in his classroom at Mainspring Academy in Jacksonville, Florida. It's refreshing to hear news about a teacher making a positive difference, since there are still teachers in the world who force "evil" left-handed kids to write with their right hand or eat the class hamster to teach students a tough lesson.

Ulmer runs the Facebook page for a project with his students called Special Books By Special Kids, which hopes to publish a book for children with special needs and their families. Ulmer describes how it will explore the challenges and loving rewards of raising a child with special needs:

I am a special education teacher who has had the same group of students for three years. I have been collaborating with my students and their parents. We our sharing our journey with the intention of erasing social stigmas and showing the true nature of my amazing students. I run this page by myself (but the project is a collaborative effort). This includes editing videos, pictures, collecting stories and responding to messages. I also love to share stories from children with special needs across the world. Together we can make a difference.
-Mr. Chris

Hopefully this video helps the classroom get closer to their goal of publishing a book. It's clear that it will be an exceptional resource and inspiration to special needs students and their families.

There are so many ways for the person you're dating to be terrible to you. That truth came out in a Reddit thread that posed the question, "What is the most awful thing a former girl/boyfriend/date has done to you?" With thousands of responses, there were stories from people that covered a lot of the worst stuff. Most of it is of the sadly everyday abuse/cheating/lying variety. But some of these dating nightmares are just effing cray cray! Vicariously enjoy others' weird heartbreak below:

1. The Super Villain

Borrowed ~$1,000 from me to fly her ex-boyfriend in from Spain while I was on a business trip.

She told me she needed the money in order to pay back an advance she had taken out at her job. Admittedly, I was preoccupied with work and I didn’t think much about it until I got back and noticed a marked shift in the way she acted around me.

It didn’t take much investigation for her whole lie to collapse in on itself. My stepmother was the Benefits/HR Manager at her company. When I called her and asked her to look into the details of the advance, she informed me that they didn’t permit payroll advances.

I confronted her and the whole can of worms opened up. She had been corresponding with her Andalusian ex-lover for months and realized she was still in love with him. She had actually planned the whole thing for weeks but–and here’s the real kick in the dick– was afraid to use her own money in case I found out and kicked her out of the apartment.

I mean– that sort of efficiently cruel calculation is some serious supervillain shit.

-beefwich

2. The Over Reaction.

Slashed my tires because I was on the phone to my mom.

-Urs_Grafik

3. The Disappearing Act.

So I’m very shy and hadn’t dated for awhile but there was this girl I was really interested in so I finally worked up the nerve to ask her out. However she wasn’t interested in me and neatly bait-and-switched me into somehow going out on a blind date with her friend instead. Still a date after so long without is a date and I decided to make it a good one…. reservations to a really nice restaurant, theater tickets, then watching the fireworks from the roof of my building that had a great view of the National Mall (this was 4th of July weekend in Washington D.C.).

I picked her up and was surprised that she was cute and seemed intelligent and funny. Small talk seemed to be working well right from the start. We went to the restaurant first. It was a place on the top floor of a hotel… great big picture windows overlooking the capital building and staff in formal-wear. Looked over the menu and we both ordered.

Then she excused herself to go wash her hands. She didn’t come back. Haven’t dated since.

-varthalon

4. The Actor.

Faked his own death for a week so he could fuck his ex. When I found out he was alive I blew up on him, and he faked a seizure to defuse the situation. It worked.

-squiddildo

5. The Poor Decision Maker?

He got a prostitute pregnant.

Enough said.  

-TheFrontPilots

6. The Amateur Tattoo Artist

My boyfriend got me fuckin wasted (my first time drinking, I was 13/14 He was 16) and at some point in my drunken half conscious night, he carved his name into my arm with a razor and mine into his. 7 years later I still have the scars but just finally got a tattoo over to cover it up.

-howivewaited

7. The Baby Maker

Dated a girl for fourish years in high school and never had sex. We break up, 10 months later she pops out a kid fathered by one of my childhood friends.

-evergreensliketrains

8. The One Who Failed the Oral Exam

Broke up with me while giving me oral sex. Literally mid-lick.

-thatJainaGirl

9. The Revenge Backfire

I once dated this insanely hot girl as a revenge tactic for my ex. Didn't really enjoy her company, and she seemed like a bit of a shitshow anyways, but I digress.

Halloween 2011, she got fucked up on speed and ended up kicking the shit out of me, broke into my house, and stole $4000 worth of my shit, including my les paul :(

Also please note I'm a 100lb girl and she was a lightweight boxer.

You'd think I'd learn not to jam the clam of crazy.

-socialsmoker

10. The Mistaken Identity

Texted me "I love you" and just a minute after he sent another message saying that it was to the wrong person. That shit hurt.

-crisseur

11. The Happy Holidays!

Freshman year of college my high school girlfriend broke up with me in a Christmas card.

Not cheating or abuse, but still a mind fuck.

-Pastafarian75

12. The Appropriate Username Checking In.

Appropriate username checking in.

-duhvorced

Kim Kardashian opened up about her pregnancy complications and told us more about her body than any nude pic could ever reveal. She wrote about it in a post on her official blog, where she's been pretty candid in detailing her feelings towards her pregnancy. She discusses the complications she had with North and how that's affecting her fears about her upcoming birth. 

While delivering North, she had a condition called "preeclampsia," which meant she had to give birth six weeks early. On top of that, her placenta didn't come out (it usually does so after giving birth). Here is her detailed explanation of what happened:

We induced my labor and I had North soon after. Right after delivery, the placenta usually then comes out. Mine did not. My placenta stayed attached inside my uterus, which is a condition called placenta accreta. This is a high-risk condition that happens when the placenta grows too deeply into the uterine wall.

My doctor had to stick his entire arm in me and detach the placenta with his hand, scraping it away from my uterus with his fingernails. How disgusting and painful!!! My mom was crying; she had never seen anything like this before. My delivery was fairly easy, but then going through that—it was the most painful experience of my life! They gave me a second epidural but we were racing against time, so I just had to deal.

[...]

After all of that, I still had a piece of placenta attached inside of me and I had to have surgery to remove it. Then I had another surgery to remove the scar tissue. This was all preventing me from getting pregnant the second time around. I have amazing doctors that helped me through the entire process and I'm so grateful I was able to conceive again!

Because of these complications, her "risk of having preclampsia and placenta acreeta are increased" for the second birth. 

These reports corroborate rumors that Kim Kardashian may, in fact, be an actual human being.

White actors were asked to "act whiter" for an audition, and they basically became theatrical representations of mayonnaise. In the most recent episode of Mic's "Flip the Script," host Liz Plank teamed up with Broad City actor Arturo Castro to hold a fake audition for white actors. In the audition, they asked the actors to act whiter, as a means of parodying casting people who ask Latinos to act out Latino stereotypes. 

As they say, "peak caucasity" was certainly reached.

Gwen Stefani isn’t keeping quiet about her divorce from husband Gavin Rossdale. The singer got real about the break-up during an interview with 94.7 Fresh FM’s The Tommy Show in Washington, D.C., yesterday. “There are so many bad things, oh my God. Like, I can't even believe it,” the singer said about the painful discovery that her husband was cheating with the nanny. 

The mother of 3, who's officially dating her co-star on The Voice, Blake Shelton, revealed she has some regrets about ending their 13-year marriage, but admits the pain has helped her to be more creative.

“I wish it didn’t happen, I wish that all of this wasn’t happening but at the same time, I feel like it was part of my life journey. In my life I’ve had two really bad heartbreaks and I’ve written some incredible music out of it and I feel so lucky to have that and to be able to share it. I feel like it’s part of what I contribute to the world and I feel really proud of that. There’s always good things that come out of bad things.”

Sounds like someone's been pinning a lot of inspirational quotes on Pinterest. 

Orange turd Donald Trump said that after the Paris Attacks, he'd "seriously consider" violating the Constitution and shutting down mosques in America. To milk this for ratings, Fox News's Megyn Kelly got Trump's National Spokesperson, Kristina Pearson, to defend this on screen to a real, live Muslim. Saba Ahmed went on to the show wearing the best possible hijab to throw shade at the people who doubt her loyalty because of her faith: 

"Megyn, we go to the mosque to pray," she said. "The thing is, you wouldn't shut down churches just because there was one or two Christians who was acting badly."

And Lord knows there are Christians behaving badly. 

"Mr. Trump has so many business dealings all over the Middle East, he's worked with Muslims, he knows we're good, hardworking people."  

Boss move, Saba, calling out Republicans where it hurts: where their racism could compromise capitalism.

In an interview with People, singer songwriter Carly Simon finally confirmed the long-time rumor that her hit song "You're So Vain" is about (at least) one of her famous exes. She's been romantically linked with a lot of Hollywood hunks, including Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson, Jack Nicholson and Cat Stevens. And the winner is...Warren Beatty! We're all drunkenly singing about Warren Beatty:

Or, at least, we're singing part of the song about Warren Beatty. See, he's only one verse out of the piece. Carly Simon has dated a LOT of total a-holes. She says:

I have confirmed that the second verse is Warren...Warren thinks the whole thing is about him!...

On whether or not she'd ever come clean about who her other jerk muses are:

I don't think so, at least until they know it's about them. Probably, if we were sitting over at dinner and I said, 'Remember that time you walked into the party and...' I don't know if I'll do it. I never thought I would admit that it was more than one person!

Here's the verse inspired by Beatty:

You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair 
And that you would never leave 
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me 
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee 
Clouds in my coffee, and... 

And here's the man who inspired the woman (with another one of her beaux and a pissed off looking Lauren Bacall):

Enhance:

Song-worthy, for sure.

While the Nobel Prize for Literature was already awarded to Svetlana Alexievich, there are more prestigious literary honors to go around. Literary Review announced the nominees for the 22nd annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, to honor "an author who has produced an outstandingly bad scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel." According to Literary Review:

The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction, and to discourage them. 

Here are excerpts from the nominees, a feast of awful writing about presumably mediocre intercourse:

1. The Making of Zombie Wars by Aleksandar Hemon

...she let him in so deep he didn’t have to think about her, and therefore he didn’t have to think about himself, but of course he was thinking about not thinking about himself and he was about to start thinking about himself when she bit his cheek, as if eager to spread the pain, and it hurt and he loved it and he could feel the skin was broken and he started coming and so did she.

2. The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos

She tickled my anus as she licked my balls and shaft, and slathered her tongue on my helmet. I laced my fingers through her hair and closed my eyes.

‘Go,’ I said.

I stopped breathing and, like her, invoked a high power.

3. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Gwennie shoved him in though she was dry. He shut his eyes and thought of mangoes, split papayas, fruits tart and sweet and dripping with juice, and then it was off, and he groaned and his whole body turned sweet, and Gwennie looked down with a smile growing on her bitten lips, and she closed her eyes and went away from him, and the farther she went, the closer Lotto tried to come to her, as if he were chasing a nymph in the scrub.

4. Against Nature by Tomas Espedal

She kisses his face and licks it. She bites his lip. She bites his cheek. She pants in his ear, shouts his name in his ear, she whips his face with her hair. She stops his mouth hard with her hand and takes his breath away. She rides above him the way she’d imagined that one day she’d ride a boy, a man, a beast; she grasps his long hair with both her hands and rides him as if he were a horse...

5. Before, During, After by Richard Bausch 

When she took him, still a little flaccid, into her mouth, he moaned, ‘Oh, lover.’ She felt him harden, and she tightened her lips and pulled, and then ran her tongue slow along the shaft, and then straightened and straddled him, guiding him into her, sinking and rising on him, head back, hands gripping his shoulders. It went on. It was very good.

6. Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen

Her mouth was intensely ovoid, an almond mouth, of citrus crescents. And under that sling, her breasts were like young fawns, sheep frolicking in hyssop – Psalms were about to pour out of me.

7. Fear of Dying by Erica Jong

I slip into bed, amazed that Asher is making the first move — which is unusual for him.

While I lie next to him, astounded by his presence still, he opens my silk robe and touches my cunt as if he were Adam just discovering Eve’s pussy.

‘Beautiful,’ he says.

8. List of the Lost by Morrissey

At this, Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it whacked and smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.

During the terrorist attacks last Friday in Paris, people were brutally attacked throughout the city in places where they had gathered to hang out, relax and have fun. The horror of it was especially driven home by the many people trapped and killed at the Bataclan concert hall during an Eagles of Death Metal concert. The band escaped and many were freed when police stormed the building, but their merchandising manager Nick Alexander was killed along with 118 others. Today, they shared this message with all their friends and fans:

It reads:

While the band is now home safe, we are horrified and still trying to come to terms with what happened in France. Our thoughts and hearts are first and foremost with our brother Nick Alexander, our record company comrades Thomas Ayad, Marie Mosser, and Manu Perez, and all the friends and fans whose lives were taken in Paris, as well as their friends, families, and loved ones. 

Although bonded in grief with the victims, the fans, the families, the citizens of Paris, and all those affected by terrorism, we are proud to stand together, with our new family, now united by a common goal of love and compassion.

We would like to thank the French police, the FBI, the U.S. and French State Departments, and especially all those at ground zero with us who helped each other as best they could during this unimaginable ordeal, proving once again that love overshadows evil. 

All EODM shows are on hold until further notice.

Vive la musique, vive la liberté, vive la France, and vive EODM.

Rock on.

Michael Phelps announced on Instagram that his fiancee Nicole Johnson is expecting a baby boy. The 22-time medalist got engaged to Johnson back in February. In addition to smoking pot and getting a DUI, Phelps now adds an out-of-wedlock pregnancy to his list of things that make some people and cereal companies very angry (Phelps famously lost a sponsorship deal after a picture surfaced of him smoking a bong). But it sounds like everyone wins with this news:

We found out eight weeks ago that we were expecting. Today we’re over 12 weeks and it looks like we’re having a boy! #babymp #lifeabouttochange #mpswim @djnolan5 

When that baby kicks, Johnson is certainly going to feel it. Hopefully it doesn't try to swim any laps while it's in the womb.

Here is all the dialogue in this video of pro skier Ian McIntosh falling 1,600 feet down the face of a mountain in the Alaskan Neacola range:

"Three, two, one. Go, go, go!" 
"Whoah! No!"
"I'm OK. I'm OK."

There are a bunch of "oofs" and other grunting noises in the middle, but you get the point—this could have been really bad. Said Todd Jones of (the appropriately named) Teton Gravity Research, which produced this video and other extreme sports films, this "was the most terrifying crash I've ever seen." Apparently, soon after beginning his descent, McIntosh encountered a five-foot deep crevasse that he couldn't see until he was on top of it,  "From there, my slough took over and there was no way to stop. I pulled my airbag to help prevent against any possible trauma injuries as I tumbled to the bottom." Hold on to your lunch, and your sympathetic pain responses, because this is a solid minute of gravity winning ruthlessly:

Here's that again from a first-person perspective:

The Evening Standard today published an interview with Tinder CEO Sean Rad. Tomorrow, the Match Group, the parent company that owns Tinder, has its IPO on the stock market. Like many tech CEOs before him, Rad stands to be quite rich after the parent company goes public. Despite many of the negative characteristics of Tinder, apparently Rad is more nerd than playboy. The interview was also attended by Rosette Pambakian, Tinder's VP of Branding and Communications. She was there to serve as chaperone and guardian for Rad. Her presence, however, was not enough to prevent him from giving some less-than stellar answers.

When asked about his own dating and love life, he reports that a supermodel has been begging to have sex with him, but he's refused her advances (it's unclear if he met her at camp or if she resides on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls area, since none of his friends have ever seen her). He insists that his rejection of this woman proves that he's a gentleman who's interested in more than looks:

She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen but it doesn’t mean that I want to rip her clothes off and have sex with her. Attraction is nuanced. I’ve been attracted to women who are, well, who my friends might think are ugly. I don’t care if someone is a model. Really. It sounds clichéd and almost totally unbelievable for a guy to say this, but it’s true. I need an intellectual challenge.

He then makes what may go down as one of the great errors in interview history when attempting to remember the word "sapiosexual," which (in addition to being an unbearably pretentious) describes a person who finds intelligence the most sexually attractive feature of a potential partner:

Apparently there’s a term for someone who gets turned on by intellectual stuff. You know, just talking. What’s the word? I want to say ‘sodomy’?

Ha! Nope, it's not "sodomy," Sean. What a cheeky response! Now you'll be playing from behind for the rest of the interview. The author of the article does make sure to mention that Rad was charming when he wasn't regurgitating approved statements about Tinder, or defenses against its biggest criticisms (that it has warped modern dating culture and caused an alleged spike in STD rates).

Rad is an ambitious and entrepreneurial nerd that grew up in a tech-savvy family. Like many regular citizens, he fields dozens of calls and texts from his mom every day. He even recently took her on a trip to Rome. After he makes his fortune, he can treat his mom to more vacations—and himself to some interview coaching so he doesn't switch any more words with "sodomy."

Read the full interview on the Evening Standard's website.

Ashley Powys, a London resident, intervened when he saw a racist harassing a Muslim woman on a London subway car. Powys was taking the train when a guy started harassing a woman wearing a hijab, getting in her face, calling her derogatory slurs, and blaming her for the Paris attacks. Powys sprung into action, pushing the guy away and comforting the woman.

The man then started harassing Powys in addition to the woman, calling him a "terrorist sympathizer." Powys held his ground, though, keeping the man away and comforting the woman for the rest of the ride. When they arrived at her stop, he then escorted her out of the subway and towards the group of friends she was meeting up with. Powys posted about the experience on Facebook, and the post has received over 50,000 likes.

The woman was grateful for Powys actions, but Powys tried (with debatable success) to not make the post a humblebrag. Instead, he wanted to make a point about the complicity of the bystanders who didn't do anything. He also wanted to stress that the best way to combat terrorism is for people to stand together as one.

Come on, Powys, you can brag a bit. You deserve it.

A guy replaced another guy's hubcaps and left him a hilarious, Pimp My Ride-inspired note. Reddit user ThatGuyBeezy lost a hubcap when he moved across the country. When he went to his car after work yesterday, he found it replaced, with the following note:

Yo Dawg,

I noticed your car only had 3 hubcaps. My car, at one time, also only had 3 hubcaps. I couldn't find the same ones, so I bought a different set, but for some reason, saved the old ones. You happen to have the same ones. I feel like a shitty version of the rap guy who pimps rides. Enjoy the sweet hubcap playa.

-The world's most random good samaritan

Here's a pic of the fresh-ass new cap:

Hubcaps on fleek.

There's a lot of cross-promotional stuff going on for the new Star Wars movie right now, but Disney probably didn't pay Spain's state-owned broadcast network Television Española to accidentally replace Al Qaeda's logo with that of the Rebel Alliance, the good guys of the original Star Warstrilogy. This occurred during a segment on how control of the Syrian city of Raqqa, now the "capital" of the Islamic State, has traded hands from Assad to Al Qaeda to the Islamic State.

Someone did get to the bottom of how such a massive screw-up happened. A not-very-good-looking Spanish hip-hop label uses the Al Qaeda name and Rebel Alliance logo, which is such an impressive feat of unoriginality that it could conceivably piss off everyone from Western nerds to Middle Eastern radicals.

Just a reminder, media: people understand the world is complicated. Take an extra day if you need to explain the history of a war-torn region without confusing it with conflicts from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Most people work all their lives to leave just a little dent in the universe, but Jaye from Singapore got her hair done two weeks ago and now it's like, A Thing. Life isn't fair. Some people work their fingers to the bone all their lives just to keep afloat. Jaye can flick her fingers through her hair and completely change what someone who perhaps has never been impressed by a viral hair video before thinks is possible when it comes to concealed iridescent follicular magic. In other words, check this out:

WHAT? WHAAAAAAT? If you'd like that question answered, Jaye has a whole page devoted to the flood of queries about her hair since the video's debut. Apparently, this coloring style is called oil slick hair, and it is, indeed, A Thing.

Good news, married couples: scientists care deeply about your sex lives. Or, at the very least, they care enough to research how much sex makes married couples happy. According to a new study published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, it's less than people might think. Previous studies have suggested that more sex is simply better, which would mean that the happiest couples are those screwing 24/7 and ignoring their jobs, friends, and pets in the process. But according to researchers, sex once a week is all it takes. According to lead researcher Amy Muise:

Although more frequent sex is associated with greater happiness, this link was no longer significant at a frequency of more than once a week. Our findings suggest that it’s important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner, but you don’t need to have sex everyday as long as you’re maintaining that connection.

And that finding didn't change whether respondents were old or young, male or female, or in new or old relationships; once a week was still a sweet spot. 

One other notable finding from the study: "Sex may be more strongly associated with happiness than is money." So maybe you can buy love. You might just have to use the currency of your junk. 

What exact combustion is taking place in this video posted by a man from Quebec is unclear, but two things are certain: 1) This is awesome, and 2) You should never, ever do this at home. The world would be a simpler place if things that looked really badass weren't also likely to burn down your house, neighborhood, and/or regional forest, but alas, there it is. That's why you should do the responsible thing and only watch this video without ever replicating it.

If everyone who was going to explode their leaves, something most people were probably unaware of as a possibility until now, were to simply satisfy themselves with watching these Québécois blow up their back yard instead, these backwoodsman would probably be carbon-negative. Make it happen, Internet.