Category Archives: blogging

Friday Links!

It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

Senate candidate has been ‘jailed repeatedly’.

An Honorable Last Wish For A Dying Marine. 58 years after being kicked out for being gay, dying Marine receives his honorable discharge.

NOM’s Slide Into Oblivion And Other Political Predictions For 2014.

Time-like loops and indeterminate particles: Cloning quantum information from the past.

And if that wasn’t enough physics for you: Life is a Braid in Spacetime: How to see yourself in a world where only math is real.

What I Learned From the Liberal Arts. I must say, I and one of my English professors at SPU had even less kind things to say about literary criticism.

The iPad Is A Solved Design Problem. Yep!

Marco Rubio Accidentally Made A Good Argument For Gay Marriage. I was going to make a broken-clock reference, but he isn’t even aware of what he said, so…

Why are we talking about a Traffic Jam from September:

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

The Simpson have some anime whimsey:

(If embedding does work, click here.)

The ASAPScience guys answer the question, “Can being cold make you sick?”

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

This is a cool (and a bit scary) optical illusion:

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

Friday Links!

It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

The Duck Dynasty star’s warped vision of civil-rights history feeds his warped view of today’s gay-rights struggle.

What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter.

The Great 2013 Sunday Show Race.

The Rise of the New Left.

Everything You Urgently Need To Know About Donald Duck’s Car (the article and illustrations are awesome!)

South Carolina Democrats back bill calling for mandatory daily prayers in public schools.

IN 2013, FAILING THE BECHDEL TEST WAS BAD FOR YOUR MOVIE’S BOTTOM LINE.

Comment: How God Hates Fags and its friends like Linda Harvey further gay rights.

How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood (Metadata is king!)

And a sneak peek at the next Spider-man movie:

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

A new chew toy

Kitten falling asleep on an Apply keyboard.
I nap a lot…
My friend, Sheryl, posted about looking at resolutions and the like as forms of behavioral modification. I especially liked her third guideline:

Replace an undesired activity with a desired activity. A good dog trainer knows that just yelling at the dog for chewing on your shoe is bad, and instead giving your dog an acceptable chew toy while removing the shoe is better. Rather than beat yourself up for obsessing over that metaphorical shoe, give yourself a metaphorical chew toy to occupy yourself.

Because it’s the time of year when lots of people compile retrospectives of the previous year and/or set goals for the next, it’s difficult not to at least think about it.

I’ve been thinking about several things that could fall into the category of resolutions.

Continue reading A new chew toy

My new year’s wish for you

Some years ago I wished everyone:

May you be wise when you need to be, foolish when it doesn’t matter, loved always, and ever ready to love.

And I can’t think of a better wish.

Happy New Year!

Friday Links!

It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

New Mexico Supreme Court affirms same-sex marriage rights. The money quote:

We conclude that the purpose of New Mexico marriage laws is to bring stability and order to the legal relationship of committed couples by defining their rights and responsibilities as to one another, their children if they choose to raise children together, and their property. Prohibiting same-gender marriages is not substantially related to the governmental interests advanced by the parties opposing same-gender marriage or to the purposes we have identified. Therefore, barring individuals from marrying and depriving them of the rights, protections, and responsibilities of civil marriage solely because of their sexual orientation violates the Equal Protection Clause under Article II, Section 18 of the New Mexico Constitution. We hold that the State of New Mexico is constitutionally required to allow same-gender couples to marry and must extend to them the rights, protections, and responsibilities that derive from civil marriage under New Mexico law.

The 40 Most Insane Things That Happened This Year In Florida.

CNN ALLOWS HATE GROUP LEADER TONY PERKINS TO LINK POLYGAMY AND GAY MARRIAGE.

‘Yes, Opposing Gay Marriage Makes You a Homophobe’.

Cats Became Pets Much Earlier Than Thought, According to Neolithic Fossils.

Politifact weighs in on: Religious activist group says ENDA would discriminate against Christians.

Why Halley’s Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1,500 Years Ago.

The Gay Men’s Chorus of L.A. performed a fun dancing version of the 12 Rockin’ Days of Christmas this last weekend (thanks to Ann Fontaine for the link):

And Pentatonix have released another video of one of the fab songs on their a capella Christmas album:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here)

Friday Links!

It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

Hubble telescope captures spouting water vapour plumes on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

Celebrities and their Christmas trees: From the gaudy to the plain tacky.

Adorably wacky email goes after gays, pro-woman ‘vaginas,’ Madonna.

Beck Fires Back at TIME’s ‘Progressive Fascism,’ Names Ted Cruz His ‘Man of the Year’.

Yellowstone supervolcano ‘even more colossal’.

I was working on a blog post about this, but this Buzzfeed article hits most of my points much more succinctly: How to Argue with Bigot Apologists About the Colorado Bakery Case.

LOOK: If You’re Going To Spread Hate, At Least Use Your Spellchecker!

Trailer for Sherlock season three:

(If embedding doesn’t work, try this link.)

This cover of “Last Christmas” by xx is completely different than the original, and rather amazing:

(Again, if embedding doesn’t work, click here {even if you hate the original, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised})

The Law of Fumble Fingers

Cat looking at a Macbook.
This may or may not be an accurate representation of me writing.
One of the problems with the way I run this blog (and it’s a subset of the way I write), is that from time to time, I accidentally publish something that isn’t ready.

I have a certain number of posts in draft form at any time. Continue reading The Law of Fumble Fingers

Friday Links

New Yorker Mandela obituary portrait.
New Yorker’s cover portrait of Nelson Mandela is by legendary artist @KadirNelson.
Friday Links!

It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

South Africa’s Nelson Mandela dies in Johannesburg.

100 Years of Breed “Improvement”.

While I have often decried the culture of permanent snark which has taken root in many places, it is equally troubling when people enforce the never criticize anything culture, as explained by: Tom Scocca: On Smarm.

U.S. Growth Faster Than Estimated.

10 worst right-wing statements of the week — Marxist pope edition.

Google, AT&T, Comcast trade group penned viscerally anti-gay memo.

Republican candidates being tutored in how to speak to female constituents and opponents: Good Luck with That.

I’d never heard this story: The Siege of Sinatra.

A My Little Pony-themed parody of a Chick Tract. (Thanks to Chip Unicorn for the link!)

6 Grammar Points to Watch Out For in Christmas Songs.

Gov. Scott Walker Named A**hole of the Day for the Third Time!.

Will Republican National Committee Chairman End His Own War on Christmas?.

First posted a few years ago, but despite recent PR to the contrary, still true: Why You Shouldn’t Donate to the Salvation Army Bell Ringers. (More recent incidents are included in this AmericaBlog story.

Update on Sea Otter with Gunshot Wounds (video).

The Daily Show takes on a few anti-gay bigots:
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This whole album is awesome, but this take on one of the best Christmas carols ever is the awesomest:
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Friday Links!

It’s Friday, here’s a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

87% Percent Of Mainers Say Gay Marriage Has Had Positive Or No Impact On Their Lives
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A guest blogger at Easily Crestfallen talks about life, expectations, and… well, I don’t want to spoil it: My Funny Cater Waiter.

Stephen Colbert Really Likes This New Slate Feature.

Why the best conspiracy theories about JFK’s assassination don’t stand up to scrutiny.

This is a few years old, but someone shared it: A study by Science/AAAS shows that rats preferred freeing caged rats rather than eating food placed in the cage, suggesting that the rats show empathy.

In Miami Gardens, store video catches cops in the act.

Ark. high court reverses ruling barring man’s gay partner from home when child stays overnight.

Right Wing Watch YouTube Account Offline Again After Klingenschmitt Files More Bogus Claims.

Great blog post from a mom raising a gay son: Stop Waiting for My Gay Son to Change.

Touche and Daisy the turtles released after 30 years in captivity in Portugal:
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Friday Links!

Occupy Wall Street activists buy $15m of Americans’ personal debt.

Hermaphroditic Australian sea slug injects sex drug into partner’s head during mating.

Better late than never, I suppose: Retraction for our 1863 editorial calling Gettysburg Address ‘silly remarks’: Editorial.

Car Mechanic Dreams Up a Tool to Ease Births: With Jorge Odón’s device, a plastic bag inflated around a baby’s head is used to pull it out of the birth canal.

More about the bigoted columnist I wrote about yesterday: WaPo’s Racist Misogynist Columnist Richard Cohen Still Not Fired Despite Racism, Misogyny.

Reporters Covering Sarah Palin Kept In Guarded Room.

Real world transformer, or pre-cursor to T-1000 Terminator… or BOTH?
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Mental Floss brings you 24 scientific discoveries made by accident:
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Former Take That members Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow perform with Barry Manilow for his classic, Could It Be Magic”
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