Category Archives: blogging

Friday Links!

blogging

icanhazcheezburger.com
I even love the typo!
It’s Friday again! Here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

GREG RUCKA HAS SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY ABOUT YOUR GATEKEEPING OF WOMEN IN GEEK CULTURE.

Hubble Drills Deep Into the Universe. Read the article and have your mind blown…

Stephen Colbert bids farewell to “Stephen Colbert” on “The Daily Show”.

The ‘7 Careers Christians May No Longer Hold’ Because Of Gay Advocates: American Family Association’s Tim Wildmon.

A Typographer’s Design History of the Unappreciated Penny. Thanks to Troy for sharing the cool link!

How they filmed the cello scenes for a recent Agents of Shield episode is amazing.

Physicists Say Consciousness Might Be a State of Matter.

New Paper Explains How To Make Supermaterial Graphene In A Blender.

18 Arguments Against Gay Marriage (and why they’re bollocks).

HOLDING OUT FOR A (GAY) HERO.

Being Gay Is a Religious Right.

For gay and lesbian parents, equality is a myth when it comes to custody cases: Despite studies showing that having a gay or lesbian parent doesn’t affect kids negatively, the courts haven’t caught up.

More Than Words: 11 “Queer” Questions From 70 Years Of Gallup Polls.

Poll: For the first time, more Texans support marriage equality than oppose it.

Boy Scouts shut down local troop with gay scoutmaster. Specifically: a local Methodist church needed a scoutmaster, they looked for candidates, hired this 49-year-old now openly gay former Eagle Scout, knowing he was gay. He’s led the troop, the Boy Scouts told the church they couldn’t do that, the congregation decided to stick by their scoutmaster, and the BSA has now kicked the church out of the Boy Scouts. I’ve been following the story, but was surprised when a couple of my straight co-workers brought it up at work. One of them lives near the church, his wife is friends with some of the parents (who all want to keep the scoutmaster).

Oh, and in case you missed it, I wrote about how awesome my husband is: He’s my guy, and I love him.

Peace Mercutio – (And That’s How) Good Charlotte (Got Famouse)”:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Trailer For Ryan Murphy’s ‘The Normal Heart’ With Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

This made it actually exciting to watch someone play Janga:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Good Links for a Good Friday!

blogging,

cattime.com
Wanna egg?
It’s nearly Easter! And it’s Friday once more. Here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

President Obama pulled a surprise move Monday at the White House’s Easter Prayer Breakfast when he selected Gene Robinson (the first openly gay Episcopal bishop) to lead the closing prayer.

How we found the giant squid. I know it’s over a year old, but it’s cool. Other than the dig against space research at the end…

‘Oh, I’ve got to write? Time to clean the stove first’. Thanks to Seashellseller for the link!

Salt Lake Tribune: Utah takes a nasty step against same-sex couples.

Peter LaBarbera came to a college to “expose” the “gay agenda.” He wasn’t expecting what would happen instead. Money quote: “As an institution, we have a duty to protect free speech, hateful or not. But we don’t have to listen to it.”

LOUISIANA: House Votes 66-27 To Keep Unconstitutional Anti-Sodomy Law.

Living the dream: 3-year-old kid escapes from home, climbs inside claw toy machine at bowling alley. Sounds like a kid who knows what he wants!

Fake Geek Guys: A Message to Men About Sexual Harassment.

In Sickness and in Health: A Couple’s Final Journey. You’ll need to have some tissues handy.

Epigenetics Helps Explain Early Humans’ Appearances.

I’M A GAY GUY AT A CHRISTIAN COLLEGE.

Zoologger: Gender-bending cave insects found in Brazil.

Daffy Duck, Glorious Archetype of Selfishness, Is 77. Here Is His First Cartoon.

The Gay Father I Never Knew.

US radio host: Advert featuring gay dads is like axe murder.

Revealed: Samsung misled investors, pundits with shipments vs. sales. ‘Market share’ is never what you’ve been led to believe it is.

Meet the Ten Most Endangered and Distinctive Birds in the World.

Former monk pleads with Pope Francis on behalf of LGBT youths.

Tony Perkins’ Disingenuous Boycott ‘Outrage’.

Stop twisting the Bible: There is no message against same-sex marriage.

President Obama kicked off Holy Week at the White House Monday with 150 Christian leaders at the fifth annual Easter Prayer Breakfast.

Matt Gold “Appreciated” (a sweet, fun song):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Mike Munich covers Kylie Minogue’s SEXERCIZE, then makes an all male version of the video:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

(A whole lotta) Friday Links!

blogging,

It’s Friday again! Where does the time go? Here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

THE FALL OF BRENDAN EICH HAPPENED WITHOUT ANY GAYS DOING MUCH OF ANYTHING.

Head of Anglican church: We must discriminate against gays lest someone think we’re gay and bash us. “Yes, because everyone knows that Jesus’ principal message for those confronted with dangerous exposure was to have you “deny” it, preferably three times.”

FBI Smashes Alleged Radical-Right Terror Plot in Texas.

Check out the all-American lunar eclipse on April 15!.

The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want U.S. to intervene. (Thanks to Chip Unicorn for the link!)

Elizabeth Warren schools Paul Ryan on poverty in 80 seconds.

New method confirms humans and Neandertals interbred.

“Anti-Christian religious bigotry” is apparently what conservatives are now calling LGBTQ rights.

These Are The 10 Biggest Myths In Psychology.

Tramp stamps, racism and “icky” pronouns: 8 new life tips from “Bell Curve” author Charles Murray. Surprise! Surprise! Racist author is bigoted about other things, too.

OP’s woman-haters club swells: Why their hatred is actually getting worse.

The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it. The Bank of England’s dose of honesty throws the theoretical basis for austerity out the window.

Atheists are adoptive parents, too! Why agencies must stop discriminating.

German Neo-Nazi Party Rocked by Interracial Porn and Penis Cake Scandals.

Mike Huckabee: Same-Sex Marriage Supporters Not ‘On The Right Side Of The Bible’.

Senate Republicans Block Bill on Equal Pay. But remember, the war on women is a myth!

How the “Gooey Universe” Could Shed Light on the Big Bang.

I Have No Idea How I Ended Up in That Stupid Geocentrism Documentary.

All set for our first comet landing.

Why Stephen Colbert is dangerous — and invaluable.

Noah: the movie and the myth. And the power of stories. (Thanks to Seashellseller for the link!)

Utah Gay Marriage Opponents Drop Debunked Research, Reduce Argument to Gibberish. (Though, let’s be honest: it wasn’t much better than gibberish to begin with)

Homophobe in denial: Why it’s important to call Mike Huckabee the H word.

Ludus Imperatorum. Or, The Latinist Dies Hard.. Game of Thrones’ family’s slogan translated to Latin. (Thanks to Foalie for the link!)

13 Year Old Liza Minnelli sings OVER THE RAINBOW :

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Brendan Velasquez – Things That Go Bump In The Night:

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Karmin – Crash Your Party:

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Friday Links!

blogging,

icanhazcheeseburger.com
Yay!
It’s the first Friday in April! Where does the time go? Here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

‘Persecuted:’ Christian Conservatism Is Now A Movement Of Querulants.

Mudslide survivors, rescuers tell their stories of tragic day.

PHOTOS: Real Vintage Men In Their Undies Put Others To Shame.

The Meaning of Life Revealed.

The House of Representatives Committee on Science is turning into a national embarrassment. Turning?

Multiverse Controversy Heats Up over Gravitational Waves.

Gene Robinson: Religious Conservatives Aren’t Victims.

10 weirdest things the Christian right thinks will turn your kids gay.

Will Christians condemn persecution of gays?

How The Supreme Court Just Legalized Money Laundering By Rich Campaign Donors.

GOP’s hideous strategy to survive as the “white party”.

Maybe time’s arrow needs ergodicity as well as entropy .

Judges Now Recognize Anti-Gay Marriage Laws Are Irrational. Rational basis is the lowest hurdle, and judges are finally pointing out that these laws can’t even get over that one.

A Groundbreaking Court Ruling Suggests Anti-Gay Job Discrimination Is Already Illegal.

The Myth of Christian Discrimination in the LGBT Rights Movement .

Why Coming Out Is A Question Of Safety, Not Honesty.

Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO.

What a fool am I! I did not post an April Fool’s day joke.

Sweet little girl takes her horse, Cinnamon, for a walk:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Mister Chase – Wonderful (A Message For The LGBT in Russia):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel Sing “Confrontation” from Les Mis:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Honey Maid ran a commercial that included families of many kinds. Some people got angry. The company didn’t back down:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Classixx – “A Stranger Love”:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Time to check in on goals

blogging, , ,

Kitten falling asleep on an Apply keyboard.
I nap a lot…
When I set my goals for the year, I tried to set very concrete steps for achieving them. Inspired by a friend’s suggestion, I modeled the tasks on the notion how one trains a pet: if a dog shows a penchant for chewing up shoes, it isn’t enough to scold the dog and try to keep the shoes out of reach; you must give the dog an acceptable chew toy. In other words, replace a bad habit with a better one.

Goal: Reduce the outrage.

Step: Listen to the Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me podcast once a week, limit the amount of time I read news during work breaks.

Progress: I keep getting interrupted while listening to Wait! Wait!…, but I am still spending less time reading serious/upsetting news throughout the day. I have also started listening to other, non-news related podcasts for my walks home from work.

Goal: Write more regularly.

Step: Spend the reclaimed break time writing. Find other ways to motivate myself to write rather than twiddle the keys.

Progress: I’m still only doing so-so with this. So I’m giving Camp NaNoWriMo a try. My posted goal is similar to what I did for regular NaNoWriMo, with the currently unstated goal of also making serious headway on the third novel in the series.

Goal: See friends for fun more, as opposed to all of my social interactions being driven by various projects.

Step: I still haven’t thought of a good concrete step for that.

Progress: We’ve gone several weeks without one or the other of us coming down sick, which should have helped. As I said to one friend just last week, it took several weeks of neither of us falling ill again before I’ve started to feel like it isn’t tempting fate to plan anything.

We still haven’t gotten a weekly get-together going. Given my work schedule of late, I’m not sure how wise it is to try to squeeze that into the schedule when we’re also trying to get back into the habit of editorial meetings and related projects.

I still think doing more fun things with friends is a good goal.

Goal: Paint, draw, and make music.

Step: Go to the Drink ‘n’ Draw gathers. Set aside some time to sketch each week.

Progress: We finally were not sick and there was no snow, so we attended this weekend! I did a horrible sketch of a dragon, and even worse of a raccoon, a decent version of a raccoon paw print (for reasons), and a rather nice sketch of the legendary cursed artifact/holy relic known as the Amulet of Ostrea. And midway through the sketching, I realized that the kneaded eraser I was using (and it was working just fine) is one I’ve own for over a decade—though it has spent most of that time in one of my art supply boxes being neglected.

What a fool am I!

blogging, , , , ,
Otter in a log.
“Silly is good!”

I am not posting an April Fool’s Day joke1816!

Footnotes: Continue reading What a fool am I! →

Friday Links! (an asteroid with rings??!)

blogging,

Amazingly, it’s Friday, again! Here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

A recent study has shown that if American parents read one more long-form think piece about parenting they will go f—ing ape shit.. Worth at least a couple of chuckles.

The Genderbread Person v2.0. Thanks to Dehd for pointing out this adorable and concise way to talking the topics of gender identity, sexual orientation, and all the tangled related topics!

Why the bizarre ocean dandelion is like an ant colony on steroids.

Astronomers Surprised to Find Asteroid With Rings.

New Dwarf Planet Found At The Solar System’s Outer Limits.

We Are All Mutants. On the hunt for disease genes, researchers uncover humanity’s 
vast diversity.

The real, true story about how parents adopted out their child when he came out as gay.

Oregon’s Next Export? Discrimination, the Anti-Gay Ballot Measure That You Will See On the Next Ballot.

New trailer for new Spiderman movie opening next month:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Famed cartoonist Mark Fiore explains the Miracle of Anti-Gay Denial:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

X-Men: Days of Future Past:

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Calculated – Brett Gleason:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Friday links!

blogging,

SomeFun.Com
Yay!
Amazingly, it’s Friday, again! Here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

Measles was on the brink of being eradicated, but Thanks, Anti-Vaxxers. You Just Brought Back Measles in NYC.

Anti-science Wingnut Jenny McCarthy Asks; the Internet Slam Dunks.

ANTI-GAY GROUPS FAIL: ALL THREE ILLINOIS REPUBLICANS WHO VOTED FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY WIN PRIMARIES.

Country resistance to gay marriage an urban myth – in Australia.

NASA releases 680-gigapixel interactive mosaic of Lunar North Pole.

Oregon AG Files Brief: Marriage Ban Serves No Rational Purpose And Harms Citizens.

Why doesn’t god kill Bill Maher?.

GOP Obsessed With Birth Control Banning, OK With Penis Pumps And Viagra.

Why Are So Few Books From the 20th Century Available as Ebooks?.

Republicans Outraged Americans Are Happy With The Affordable Care Act.

McConnell fundraiser: Wives have ‘obligation’ to sleep with husbands. Except he didn’t say ‘sleep,’ of course, he said “sexual relations regardless of their mood.”

Louisiana Public School Finds Out It Can’t Force Christianity On Students. (You may have seen the story earlier of the teacher who singled out a buddhist student in her class to explain to the other kids how “stupid” such beliefs were.)

How Not to Sound Like a Creationist to a Trans Person.

Fred Phelps, Founder of God Hates Fag Church, Is Dead. My grandma taught me to only say nice things about the dead. “He’s dead. How nice.”

RIP, Fred Phelps: Your Legacy Is Not What You May Think.

When An Arkansas High School Tried to Silence a Gay Student, He Spoke Even Louder.

Power Lines Look Like Terrifying Bursts of Light to Animals.

Scientists Discover Why Dark Chocolate Is So Good For You In Most Delicious Research Project Ever.

Geek Girls Night Out: Truth Hurts. And I’m not just linking to it because Joi, the author, is a friend. I’ve written about a similar topic myself.

Harlem parents counter hate sign with support for LGBT youth.

Kylie Minogue – Sexercize:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Friday Links with the Best Gay Possible

blogging, ,

http://icanhas.cheezburger.com
It’s Friday!
It’s the last Friday before St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

All 7 of Texas’ openly LGBT congressional, state legislative candidates win primaries.

Scientist Scan Brain of Woman Who Claims Out of Body Experiences While She Has It. And prove why the delusion feels so real.

Hal Douglas, 89, Superstar of Movie Trailer Narrators, Dies. In a world without Hal Douglas… how do they make movie trailers?

White Man March Coming To NYC To Fight “Anti-White Agenda”. One newsblogger from New York says that last time this group tried this, it wound up being two guys with badly made signs.

The 17 Equations That Changed the Course of History. Somewhat misleading title. Yes, they show an important logarithmic equation, but then what they talk about changing the world is the entire concept logarithms. Similarly with Calculus…

Clues to Genghis Khan’s rise, written in the rings of ancient trees.

I didn’t come from no monkey, updated.

Diamond Traps Rare Mineral, Brings to the Surface Tantalizing Clues from the Deep.

Dozens of Insect Species Living Only On Two Types of Flower.

Darren Hayes: ‘Come out. In your own time.’.

In One Sentence, Michele Bachmann Proves How Ignorant Republicans are about the Constitution.

Study: Police see black children as less innocent and less young than white children.

CALIFORNIA PUSHES TO FINISH DRIVERLESS CAR RULES.

VLT Spots Largest Yellow Hypergiant Star.

Creatures from Your Dreams and Nightmares: Unbelievable Marine Worms Photographed by Alexander Semenov.

Tea Party Activists Aren’t Gearing Up For 2016 — They Want To Refight 1964.

Op-Ed: The outcry against Rayon in Dallas Buyer’s Club is less about Jared Leto playing a trans woman, and more about an industry where Rayon is the only trans woman allowed to exist.

Twins tell story of coming out to each other (yes, a repost from yesterday):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

The dance of the strategically placed towels:

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Bright Light Bright Light & Elton John – “I Wish We Were Leaving” :

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

The ever fabulous Pet Shop Boys have created a lovely dance track from the “Noble Call” speech by Irish drag performer, Panti Bliss. It’s a lovely song, includes the whole speech, and yes, you can dance to it:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here — And it’s available on iTunes here!)

Confessions of a re-blogger

blogging, ,

shutterstock.com
Always check the dictionary.
I’ve been beginning my blog posts for a while now with an image. Sometimes, such as the two recent posts about the “white homo demons” preacher, they have been images used to illustrate the news article to which I was linking. Others have been editorial cartoons, memes, photos I’ve taken myself, or images from other sources on the internet. Whenever possible, I include the copyright holder or source of the image in the ALT tag of the image.

Occasionally the place I got the image from is a tweet or other re-blog that doesn’t have the original source. When that happens, I try to track down the source with Google Image Search, but some images have been re-blogged so many times, the original source doesn’t come up in the search. Then I try to the read the EXIF data from the image, but often there’s nothing useful there, either because it’s been stripped out along the way, or in the case of web comic images and the like, it was never there.

My lynx plushy seated at my laptop.
I know the source of this one. I took the picture myself, in my living room. That’s my laptop. The cute lynx plushie was a gift from my husband.
If I were being really scrupulous, I oughtn’t to use the image at all at that point. After all, I have more than one artist friend who has found their work being used, without their permission, on t-shirts or other items for sale somewhere, and heard their rant about their failed attempts to get the people who stole their work to, at the very least, acknowledge who made it.

But, often I go ahead and use the image. I rationalize that I’m not profiting from it and that I’ve done due diligence trying to locate the source to give credit. But it’s a rationalization. Should I feel guilty about that?

Probably. And maybe I should start going the ultra-scrupulous route: don’t post it if I can’t find the source and link back to it. I’ve certainly ranted enough about people using the excuse the “everyone else is doing it” in the past. There’s such a rant about a recent news story sitting in my draft queue right now. I had been looking for a good “hypocrite” image, and had found a great one (much more interesting that the Shutterstock image above), but couldn’t find the original source to give credit.

Then I got an email from someone wanting permission to use an image I’d used in a post months ago. I had to explain that I’d found the image on iLounge, and so didn’t have the right to give permission, because it wasn’t my image.

Even though that image did have the URL for the source of the image, the URL is in the ALT tag, and most people don’t even know how to view that. So, even when I am pointing to the source, most people don’t realize it.

What to do… what to do?