Carrie Fisher, aka General Leia Organa (or I guess General Leia Solo if she took his name), is hilarious. She has, to say the least, dealt with some heavy stuff during her time in Hollywood (drugs, mental illness, aging), but she's come out of with with a give-no-f***s attitude that she's more than earned. Although this interview is ostensibly about Star Wars, it's mostly about Carrie's bemusement that the woman interviewing her is somehow over 40, and what it's like for people who didn't hit the "DNA jackpot" to age through the years.

Acceptable reasons for disinviting a scientist from a major international conference include finding out they're not really a scientist, but realizing they're pregnant (months after they've already told you) is not an OK reason—but that's exactly what happened this fall to Dr. Samantha Decombel, a British geneticist and entrepreneur. Dr. Decombel is a pretty accomplished person, and recently founded her second company, Fitness Genes, creating personalized diet and exercise routines for people based on their individual genetics. Now she can add starting a dialogue and online movement for pregnant and working moms to her list.

She had been invited to speak about science and entrepreneurship at November's Voice of the Researchers Conference by the European Commission (the executive branch of the European Union). This makes sense, since she's, y'know, a scientist who has founded multi-million-dollar startups. Until, that is, they found out she was 7 months pregnant.

 

A photo posted by Dr. Samantha Decombel (@samdecombel) on Nov 29, 2015 at 7:47am PST

In case you can't read it, here's what the Commission told her in the strange language that is EU bureaucratic English, "I get back to you because after a reflexion our colleagues from the European Commission are not very enthusiastic to take a risk for your health making you travel to Brussels at the late stage of your pregnancy." Here's the excerpt of her response to being uninvited that she posted as an open letter on Instagram:

I was invited to speak at this years conference in Brussels as a young female scientist and entrepreneur, who has set up two companies and raised over £1M in funding and grants to support the research around our ideas. As this is an area I am passionate about I agreed to speak and offer my experiences and views. As I am sure you are aware, one of the key hurdles facing many women in science and entrepreneurship is the desire to start a family, and how this will fit in with their career plans. As @sherylsandberg, COO of Facebook, has said in the past, so many women 'leave before they leave' in anticipation of starting a family due to the guilt of juggling these two apparently contradictory options, taking on less responsibility within their role, taking a back seat in key decision-making and effectively putting the brakes on their career prospects before they actually need to, ensuring that on their return to work they are already at a disadvantage. I do not intend to put the brakes on my ambitions until I need to, and would encourage others to consider why we lay this guilt on female researchers that wish to have both a career and a family. Turning away a pregnant speaker, who is in excellent health and has voluntarily agreed to travel to voice her opinions at this event seems to me to be the perfect demonstration of why this is still such an issue for many, and the absolute opposite of what I would hope the European Commission would want to convey. I cannot see what risk my presence at this event would represent for the EC, and hope you will reconsider your decision to withdraw my voice on account of what should be considered a perfectly natural occurance that likely around half of your audience will experience at some stage in their lives. I would hope that they would not be encouraged to 'leave before they leave' on account of having made the choice to start their own family".

She concluded, depressingly,

Disappointingly, I did not receive a reply to this email. #feminism#pregnancyproblems #womeninbusiness

Although this stunning rejection happened a while ago, Dr. Decombel said it took a while for her to make the decision to go public. “I re-read the email several times over and asked colleagues to do the same to check I wasn’t overreacting,” she told BuzzFeedNews. “They assured me that I absolutely wasn’t, and it was totally unacceptable.” She also gave the Commission plenty of time and opportunities to reply.

Here's the text of her explanation for why she decided to take her story to the media (coupled with her birth announcement—congrats, by the way, doc). 

I hadn't expected to make a formal announcement of this on social media, but given the events of the last few weeks it feels like the right thing to do. I am pregnant. I am over the moon that myself and my partner will soon be welcoming our little girl into the world. I am also still the Chief Science Officer of @fitnessgenes and love my job. When I was invited to give a talk in #Brussels this week on #science and #entrepreneurship, I happily accepted, as it is a cause close to my heart. So you can imagine my shock when my invite was withdrawn by @europeancommission officials due to my being 7 months on 'health reasons'. As an advocate for our company I am in excellent health. Regardless, it should be my choice, as it should be any woman's choice, as to whether to participate in events at this later stage of pregnancy. I invited them to reconsider, with a heartfelt and considered response. I didn't even get a reply. I emailed again, making them aware of how disappointed I was in this lack of response to such an important issue as pregnancy discrimination. They then tried to insist the withdrawal was due to other reasons, despite the strong evidence to the contrary. I felt I had no option but to escalate this further. The Sunday Times have picked up my story as an exclusive and I look forward to this issue finally being taken as seriously as I believe it should be. This type of discrimination is not only illegal, it discourages women from pursuing careers in science or business as they believe they have to make a choice between this and family. This should absolutely not be the case, and is too important to let go unchallenged. #discrimination#health#pregnant#pregnantinheels #pregnancy#pregnantgirlproblems#pregnancyproblems #femaleentrepreneur#womeninbusiness #girlboss#entrepreneurship #equality#science#womeninscience#feminism#leanin#Business #businesswomen#femalefounder#startup

Overabundance of hashtags aside, Dr. Decombel makes great points about the hurdles facing women in all sorts of workplaces. Most importantly, she points out correctly that pregnancy is different for every individual, and while a doctors may indeed recommend some women not fly during their third trimester, that advice should only come from a doctor and the decision rests with the mother. Not in the hands of what is literally a bunch of bureaucrats sitting hundreds of miles away in a government building.

Dr. Decombel's situation has resonated strongly with women online, and many are posting their own photos of participating in activities at 7 months pregnant, appropriately called #7MonthsAwesome:

So, did anyone learn their lesson?

Well, at least something productive came out of a government conference.

Look, what people do on the Internet is their business, so it's impossible to say what, exactly, led imgur user OhMyImaginaryFriend to create an album of the many possible results of different species having sex.* But they did, indeed, create this album. The moral of the story? 1) Anything is possible and 2) keep everything away from lions, because if they don't eat it they will create a chimera with it. 

Before you ask, yes, there is a video just about those Savannah Cats.

*Actually, the motivation behind the album was probably the same as whatever led them to create this album of animal penises:

Welcome to the Internet.

Today is the first day of Hanukkah, so if you turn on the radio at any time, you'll probably hear old DJs laughing at the same Adam Sandler song that was on when they started working in radio. Rather than do that, here's a parody song from Rachel Bloom, who's now getting 96% on Rotten Tomatoes on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but two years ago was being written about for this holiday parody song.

And that was only a year after Bloom went from being a Brooklyn and LA stand-up to having her first viral hit in her, uh, love letter to sci-fi author Ray Bradbury.

Happy Hanukkah, and happy parody songs to everyone.

What if you take the pilot out of the plane and give control to a wireless operator on the ground? Well, then you'd have a drone. But what if you put a human back in the drone? Well, then you still have a drone, because some guy on the ground is controlling the one-passenger dodecacopter. That's what's been achieved by a team at the National University of Singapore, who may have unwittingly ushered in a terrifying dystopia of ordering people to do your chores who are then flown back to the base like some sort of Amazon Mary Poppinses.

But what if you gave the remote to the guy in the dodecacopter? HMMMM? What then? It's still a drone, because the pilot is still controlling it wirelessly, but they'll wish they weren't because they'll be terrified of dropping the remote the whole time.

Celebrities gathering to celebrate themselves is a time-honored tradition, and this on February 15th, music artists finally get a turn. The Grammy nominations came out Monday morning. Please keep in mind that Adele wasn't snubbed, her album just didn't come out in time to be considered for this year. Fear not, 2017 will be the year of 25. 

For this years show, Kendrick Lamar leads the pack, with a hardy 11 nominations.

Taylor Swift, Kendrick's co-star in the Kill Bill remake known as "Bad Blood," is in second place with seven. 

The Weeknd also scored seven, and likely can't feel his face and is loving it.

Here are the nominees in all the biggest categories (sorry, Audiobook of the Year). The full list is available on the Grammys website.

Record of the Year
“Really Love,” by D’angelo and the Vanguard

“Uptown Funk,” Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars

“Thinking Out Loud,” Ed Sheeran

“Blank Space,” Taylor Swift

“Can’t Feel My Face,” The Weeknd

Album of the Year
Sound & Color, Alabama Shakes
To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar
Traveller, Chris Stapleton
1989, Taylor Swift
Beauty Behind The Madness, The Weeknd

Song of the Year

"Alright," Kendrick Lamar (Songwriters: Kendrick Duckworth, Mark Anthony Spears & Pharrell WIlliams)

"Blank Space," Taylor Swift (Songwriters: Max Martin, Shellback, & Taylor Swift)

"Girl Crush," Little Big Town (Songwriters: Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna & Liz Rose)

"See You Again," Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth (Songwriters: Andrew Cedar, Justin Franks, Charles Puth & Cameron Thomaz)

"Thinking Out Loud," Ed Sheeran (Songwriters: Ed Sheeran & Amy Wadge)

Best New Artist

Courtney Barnett

James Bay

Sam Hunt

Tori Kelly

Meghan Trainor

Congratulations to all of the nominees, and to everyone who has heard of all of the nominees!

A duo of Dutch pranksters took on Islamophobia with a clever challenge to see if unsuspecting people could tell the difference between Quran and Bible passages. Spoiler alert: they couldn't. The group, whose YouTube videos also include the phonetically intriguing "Beter Dan Seks?", orchestrated the politically relevant, Billy on the Street-style stunt to point out the hypocrisy of prejudice against Islam.

"The Islam has been under huge scrutiny lately and is often criticised for being an aggressive religion... but what about Christianity?" the Dit is Normaal team writes,"We disguised a Bible as a Quran and read some of it's [sic] most gruesome verses to the people. This is what they had to say."

People were quick to assume that any quotes they found distasteful were from the "other" book, and had funny reactions when it was revealed that they were just staight-up prejudiced.

At this point, the craziest name for a celebrity to give their baby is something totally normal. Kim Kardashian gave birth to her second child with Kanye West on Saturday, and the little dude (aka baby boy) doesn't have a name yet. But he reportedly has a middle name, and it's so regular that it's insane: Robert. According to People, Kim decided to use her late dad's name for her baby's middle name. So please welcome to the world [TBD] Robert West.

As for the baby's first name, it probably won't be Easton. That name has been rumored and tweeted about for so long that it would be a pretty uneventful choice at this point.

May the baby be happy and healthy and string everyone along for as long as possible while offering little obscure clues and hints of information until his name is finally revealed in a viral adorable piece of media content.

Can you imagine how much Internet trolling Ariana Grande experiences in a day? It's something most of us, unless Ariana Grande is reading this, will never have to think about. (And Ariana, if you are there, hopefully there are no hard feelings about allthosedonut-lickingposts.) Celebrities who provide us with tweets to read and squad photos to analyze have to deal with a lot of bullshit in return. And usually they don't engage with haters. But there were occasional wonderful moments over this past year when famous people took a break from sparkling their pits with diamond dust to perfectly shut down trolls. Here are the best examples.

8. Ariana Grande

When an Instagram commenter tried to make a creepy joke about pop star Ariana Grande's body by writing, "my 9 year old sister has bigger tits then you," she basically held a mirror up to his grossness and replied, "spend a lotta time looking at your 9 year old sister's tits? :/." No elaborate emojis necessary to make that point. A crudely assembled crooked smiley face will do.

7. Cher

A burn from Cher probably burns the most. When she tweeted about an incident of police violence against a high school student, someone replied "she disserved it!" Then Cher responded, "Heartless bitch...table for One." Do you see the reservation? The person on the phone said it was confirmed for 7:30. Maybe it's just under "bitch"?

6. Anna Paquin

Actress Anna Paquin had some clarifications for commenters who decided her new hairstyle was ugly and her dress choice meant that she was either fat, pregnant, or both. Mostly, that they're wrong and also cowards. She even tagged Mother Nature in a subtweet.

5. Chrissy Teigen

When Fruity Pebbles shamers objected to pregnant model Chrissy Teigen eating "dyed crap," she called them out on Twitter and then had a blast thinking of more forbidden things she could do during her pregnancy, starting with a lunch of dyed tuna fish and dyed vodka soda.

4. 50 Cent

Over the summer, 50 Cent showed a good sense of humor (something people didn't previously know he had) about his money troubles. When news broke that he had filed for bankruptcy and Twitter became littered with "25 cent" jokes, the rapper shared an Instagram photo of himself next to a tiny car and wrote "Times are hard out here LMAO."

3. George Takei

Seeing the esteemed George Takei post a blow job joke in a Facebook comment was the opportunity of a lifetime.

2. Zendaya

In August, a Twitter user, who presumably is a human being who was born from two human parents, made a joke calling Zendaya's parents ugly. Someone else chimed in "her parents are really ugly I would cry." The singer/actress shut down this fascinating commentary regarding the appearance of her family with a message beginning, "First, I'm gonna pray for you."

1. Kim Kardashian

To anyone who thought Kim Kardashian was faking her pregnancy, this naked selfie should clear things up.

Courtney and Steve Solstad, a couple from Dallas, Texas, adopted a baby boy and surprised the heck out of their three daughters by placing him under the Christmas tree. The video, which has almost 350,000 views, was posted to Facebook by Courtney, and shows the kids bugging out upon discovering that young Nathan will be their new brother. The best reaction is from the girl who seems to be the oldest daughter, when she dispassionately proclaims, "I'm gonna wet my pants."

Here's a picture of the little burrito:

Try not to wet your pants!

Update: the video was removed from Facebook.

Don't even bother falling in love and pledging to spend the rest of your life together if you're not going to create a viral wedding dance video at the reception, ok. Better make it creative too, because we've seen it all at this point. Robert and Teresa Ly gave their dance routine a fun twist, it involved all 250 of their absurdly good-looking guests. (They look straight out of Central Casting, seriously.)

The Lys, who had a superhero-themed wedding, gave their reception attendees a secret mission. Hidden under the tables in manila envelopes, were the directions for making an epic music video mash up. Guests were briefed for 10 minutes, put into position, and then this craziness happened:

Congrats to these two on their viral video. Oh yeah and love or whatever, who cares.

The holidays are upon us once again, so it's a good time to remember that old saying: "The only gift you should ever give anyone is Someecards stuff." It's as true this year as it's ever been. Here are the best gifts to give to that special "some"one in 2015:

SomeWine

(Get 10% off SomeWine with code SOMEHOLIDAY10 through 12/31/15.)

$12.99—Buy now.

$12.99—Buy now.

$12.99—Buy now.

Some Calendars

$10.47—Buy now.

$6.32—Buy now.

Some Coffee Mugs

$7.99—Buy now.

$12.75—Buy now.

Some Greeting Cards

$10.00—Buy now.

$6.99—Buy now.

$10.00—Buy now.

Some Glasses and Coasters

$9.99—Buy now.

$9.40—Buy now.

$8.00—Buy now.

Some Books

$19.55—Buy now.

$8.73—Buy now.

Some Mad Libs

$4.99—Buy now.

$4.99—Buy now.

Over the summer, it seemed like Taylor Swift would add someone new to her squad of female friends practically every day. But lately, there's been a bit of a hiatus, probably to let everyone cool off from all the excitement. In the meantime, new squads have sprouted, most of them involving Jennifer Lawrence in some direct or tangential capacity. But now, T-Swift is back in the game of taking highly posed Instagram photos with carefully curated companions. And she's going global.

Over the weekend, Swift posted multiple photos while hanging out in Australia, chillest continent ever, with the actress Blake Lively and the animal kangaroo. She was in "town" to perform as part of her 1989 world tour, which is, remarkably, still going.

In one photo, Swift and Lively jumped up and down. If you've ever taken an art history class, you'll recognize this as reminiscent of the famous photograph featuring Swift and her squad wrapped in American flag towels on July 4th.

In another, Swift explains and demonstrates that kangaroo selfies are "a thing."

And here, Swift makes a quirky, self-effacing joke about how a kangaroo didn't pay attention to her. Isn't she down-to-earth and relatable and hated by kangaroos?

Lively also posted a photo, pretending that Swift was photobombing her. That's a pretty A-list joke.

Meanwhile, this kangaroo probably has the most influential social media presence for an animal since those baby goats on a trampoline.