Tag Archives: friday

Friday Links (pig-nosed turtle edition)

CR83EcwVEAApv1QIt’s already the fourth Friday October!? It’s the month of pumpkins and falling leaves and spooks and costumes! It is also Gay History Month

Once again, I’m really, really, really glad that the weekend is upon us! Between throwing my back out last weekend and crazy deadlines converging at work, I’m wrung out!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Link of the Week

Let’s listen to each other on the topic of guns. We have to stop being irrational at each other and actually work on the parts of the situation that are indisputably a problem, and also happen not to be impossible to solve.

This week in Difficult to Classify

Could a simple mistake be how the NSA was able to crack so much encryption?

This week in Heart-wrenching

Teen testifies about getting whipped in church, brother’s death. THE LATEST: LAWYER SAYS CHURCH BEATING SUSPECT A ‘SWEET’ MOM

5th north St. Louis church burns in 9 days.

7 Fires Set At Mostly Black Churches In St. Louis Area Ruled Arson.

‘It is arson:’ 6 churches set on fire near Ferguson in 10 days.

This week in Evil Greedy People

Price-Gouging Pharma CEO Fuming As Rival Creates $1 Alternative AIDS Drug.

Science!

Different Brain Regions are Infected with Fungi in Alzheimer’s Disease.

Hints of Life on What Was Thought to Be Desolate Early Earth.

New Species of Ancient Shorebird Identified from New Zealand Fossils.

A Genetic Study Writes a New Origin Story for Dogs.

Thomas Jefferson’s hidden chemistry lab was just discovered.

Pluto Is Sublime. It’s Also the Pits.

The 2 Types of Knowledge You Should Know About.

Hubble’s sharpest photos of Jupiter ever taken reveal a rare feature that hasn’t been seen for over 36 years.

Arvinachelys goldeni: Fossil Shows Pig-Snouted Turtles Lived among Dinosaurs.

Oldest known jawbone from human genus found in Ethiopia.

Scuba divers in Bahamas find trove of extinct animal fossils and clues to a scientific mystery.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

Ursula K. Le Guin on Where Ideas Come From, the “Secret” of Great Writing, and the Trap of Marketing Your Work.

Fantasy Book Critic Welcomes Howard Andrew Jones – Wishing That Leigh Brackett had Written More.

Hollywood Gives Its Black Geek a Promotion.

This Week in History

Germany tells Netanyahu: “No, we are actually responsible for the Holocaust”.

The Deadly Legacy of HIV Truthers.

Culture war news:

Conservative radio host freaks out: ‘Transgender crowd’ will use magnets to suck God from your brain.

DEBUNKING THE MEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT.

11 Outrageous Lies by the Fox News ‘Terror Analyst’ Who Was Actually a Con Man.

Georgia Confederate Flag Supporters Charged With Terrorism.

What should we make of a billionaire homophobe donating money in furtherance of the denigration of an entire class of American citizens?

A perverted campaign against LGBT rights in Houston.

The Unsuitables.

2 Lesbian Students Have Been Told They Can’t Wear This Shirt To School. School Official Said A Shirt Was ‘An Open Invitation To Sex’

Planned Parenthood Clinics are Burning, and No One Seems to Care.

Please feed the Star Wars trolls: White supremacists need to be noticed to keep their ideas on the fringe.

Venice lawmaker files controversial “religious freedom” bill opposed by gay rights groups.

This Week in the Clown Car

A black perspective on Ben Carson, the Teapublican’s ‘anti-Obama’.

Is Trump right about 9/11?

Jeb Bush didn’t want to be defined by his brother. Now he wants to get him back in the race.

Rubio’s Immigration Magic Trick: For Immigration Reform and Also Against It.

Trump: Iowa Voters Have Chemical-Addled Brains.

This week in Other Politics:

Canada’s Justin Trudeau leads a Liberal landslide in stunning election victory.

The False Rise and Fall of Rand Paul.

Biden’s True Legacy: He Was Obama’s Conscience on LGBTQ Rights.

Sad, sexless, lonely: This is the real Paul Ryan/Ayn Rand vision for your life.

Hillary Laughs In The Face Of Teabagger Rep.

After marathon day of Clinton testimony, Benghazi committee continues streak of partisan failure.

This Week in Sexism

She’s the heroine of the Star Wars universe, so why was she erased from this children’s shirt?

This mathematical formula shows that all-male panels are sexist.

News for queers and our allies:

My Transgender Daughter: A Father’s Emotional Journey from Shame to Acceptance.

MOVIES Talking with ‘Big Eden’ director Thomas Bezucha.

‘I am gay’: World-champion skier and Olympic medalist Gus Kenworthy comes out.

6 Transgender Women’s Memoirs You Need To Read Now.

A Big Step Toward Ending “Cure Gay People” Therapy.

Matt Zarley Romances Film Festivals with Acclaimed Musical Short Film & Recording Project – “hopefulROMANTIC”.

How a Facebook Post Became the Best Mistake I Ever Made.

Farewells:

Bruce Hyde (1941-2015). Hyde was absolutely sensational during the first season of Star Trek, in two major guest starring turns as Lieutenant Kevin Riley in “The Naked Time” and “The Conscience of the King.”

Things I wrote:

Applause from the wrong side.

You don’t have to add diversity—just stop erasing it!

Learning how to write what you want to write.

Monsters Are People, Too – more of why I love sf/f.

Videos!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Reunion (Today Show) [Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandan, Tim Curry, Meatloaf and Patricia Quinn were interviewed earlier this month]:

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

Troye Sivan – TALK ME DOWN (Blue Neighbourhood Part 3/3):

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

In case you missed it: The Future Is Now! – 10/21/15 – A Special Message From Doc Brown:

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

Friday Links (robotic telescope edition)

A duplicate of China's Jade Rabbit lunar probe photographed during tests before launch (Image: CNSA)
A duplicate of China’s Jade Rabbit lunar probe photographed during tests before launch (Image: CNSA)
It’s already the third Friday October!? It’s the month of pumpkins and falling leaves and spooks and costumes! It is also Gay History Month

Once again, I’m really, really, really glad that the weekend is upon us!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Link of the Week

Why Twitter’s Dying (And What You Can Learn From It). When a technology is used to shrink people’s possibilities, more than to expand them, it cannot create value for them.

This Week in Diversity

The Only Request Any Voiceover Actor or American-Latino Need Follow.

Beauties and Beasts by Amelia Vaughn. “Because he should know that true love is still for him, even though he’s not interested in pretty girls. He deserves that. All kids do. Because true love is for everyone.”

Just Because You Do These 3 Things Doesn’t Make You A Feminist.

To the LGBT community, the niqab debate sounds mighty familiar.

This week in Topics Most People Can’t Be Rational About

SHOCKER: The Northern Arizona University Shooter Is a Patriot and a Gun Nut.

This week in Difficult to Classify

One of the news sites that linked to this introduced it with “I want to be in Obama’s book club!” It’s a conversation about literature: President Obama & Marilynne Robinson: A Conversation in Iowa.

This week in Heart-wrenching

Slain Transgender Woman Was Target of ‘Neighborhood’ Robbers: Police.

Happy News!

Paramount opens their vaults, puts huge movie collection on YouTube channel.

Science!

Pluto’s Sky Is Blue! Well, Kinda.

China Put a Robotic Telescope on the Moon 2 Years Ago—and It’s Working Great.

Filmmaker Combines Every Photo From the NASA Apollo Mission Archive Into a Stop-Motion-Style Video.

Is Our Universe a Fake?

Can you hear me now? Early humans’ hearing abilities actually mirrored a certain animal’s.

Hairy animals have been around longer than thought: 125-million-year-old ‘Cretaceous furball’ fossil pushes back origins by 60 million years.

The Wet and Slightly Less Wet Microclimates of Seattle.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

Turn off the Brain, and Enjoy the Ride.

16 films adapted from horror giant H.P. Lovecraft.

This week in Geek

How is NSA breaking so much crypto?

On Apple’s Insurmountable Platform Advantage. “The truth is the best people in chip design no longer want to work at Intel or Qualcomm. They want to work at Apple.”

The Inside Story of Apple’s New iMacs. To me the heart is the effort they went to in order to make the sound the new mouse makes as if moves “right.” It is all about the details!

Culture war news:

What You’re Saying When You Use the Phrase “Politically Correct”.

We Were Sued by a Billionaire Political Donor. We Won. Here’s What Happened.

Republicans Admit Planned Parenthood Did Nothing Wrong.

School district fights feds on transgender student’s locker room access.

10 Ways Right-Wing Christians Are Destroying Christianity.

N.J. archbishop: No communion for Catholics who support gay marriage.

Libertarian superstar Ayn Rand defended Native American genocide: “Racism didn’t exist in this country until the liberals brought it up”.

Paul Krugman bursts David Brooks’ fantasyland version of conservatism: “Actually existing conservatism is a radical doctrine”.

Death of the Reagan revolution: Why the Southern Strategy is beginning to come undone.

Feds Arrest Fox News Commentator, Allege He Lied About CIA Past.

This Week in the Clown Car

Uh Oh, Lying Liar Carly Fiorina’s Planned Parenthood Lie Just Turned Into A Bigger Lie.

A Gay Dad Sounds Off On Why Mike Huckabee Is Choking On Those Rainbow Doritos.

The Psychology of the Impossible Campaign: An Investigation Featuring George Pataki.

How Steve Jobs Fleeced Carly Fiorina.

Ben Carson’s Broken Brain Has New ‘Thoughts’ On Gay Marriage.

Rand Paul’s Solution to LGBT Discrimination: Go Back in the Closet.

Louisiana’s nasty Bobby Jindal hangover: GOP failure is giving new life to Democrats in the unlikeliest of places.

This week in Other Politics:

Independent review board says NSA phone data program is illegal and should end. Bad headline, because the real story is: “We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

Congressional Dems Urge TSA To Change Screening Procedures For Transgender Passengers.

Here Are The Two Best Things About The First Democratic Debate.

Amazing: Hillary goes for human!

DC insiders think Bernie Sanders lost the debate. Here’s why they might be wrong.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this to some of my friends: Bernie Sanders truthers, step down: There’s no conspiracy to hide that he “won” the debate.

Obama again delays Afghanistan troop drawdown.

This Week in Racism

County Official Who Made A Bunch Of Racist And Sexist Facebook Comments Resigns.

The real reason the Republican Party is imploding: It’s still all about race.

This Week in Sexism

Cartoon: FAMOUS SCIENTIST DOES SOMETHING BAD.

Why are homophobic atheists rare, but sexist atheists are common?

Chivalry Isn’t Dead, You Just Don’t Know What the Fuck it is.

REMEMBER WHEN FROLICKING ON THE BEACH WITH YA HOMIE WAS OKAY?

News for queers and our allies:

San Francisco Is Changing Face of AIDS Treatment.

The “All In The Family” Episode That Changed Gay Rights In America.

Gay libbers as moral heroes.

My Transgender Son Never Listens to Me – He’s trans, but my son is still your typical rambunctious little boy.

Managing The “Mom Factor” As Same-Sex Parents.

How WWII Started The Modern Gay Rights Movement [Video auto-plays].

Mormon Church Bleeding Members Over Gay Marriage.

How Identical Twin Boys Became Brother and Sister: One Family’s Courageous Transgender Story.

PHILADELPHIA: No Jail Time For Two Alleged Gay Bashers, Third Rejects Plea Deal And Will Face Trial.

‘Conversion therapy’ endangers LGBT youth and must stop: U.S. report.

Farewells:

Sad Stuff: Underground Comics Giant Dennis Eichhorn is Dead.

Things I wrote:

Come out, darlings, the world is fine!

Indigenous Peoples Day.

Overthinking is the enemy of creativity!.

Every child deserves to live free of harassment.

Nuclear Dinosaurs and Tragic Heroes – more of why I love sf/f.

Videos!

Time – [Official Music Video] – Steve Grand:

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

Eli Lieb – Zeppelin (Official Video):

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

Matt Fishel – “Finally” (Official Music Video):

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

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – New Campbell’s Ad Angers A “Million” Moms:

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

Umbrella – Vintage “Singin’ in the Rain” Style Rihanna Cover ft. Casey Abrams & The Sole Sisters:

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

AJ McLean – Live Together ft. Jordan James:

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

Friday Links (bizarre old maps edition)

A graphic trying to depict commerce as arteries and organs, published in 1889 by the Land & River Improvement Company of Superior, Wisconsin.
A graphic trying to depict commerce as arteries and organs, published in 1889 by the Land & River Improvement Company of Superior, Wisconsin.
It’s already the second Friday of October, the month of pumpkins and falling leaves and spooks and costumes! It is also Gay History Month

Once again, I’m really, really, really glad that the weekend is upon us!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Link of the Week

“The Man of Commerce” is a detailed map that conflates human anatomy with the American transportation system. Published in 1889 by the Land & River Improvement Company of Superior, Wisconsin, the map promotes Superior as a transportation hub and shows the routes of 29 railroads across the United States. American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection.

This Week in Diversity

Sunday is National Coming Out Day: What You Need to Know: National Coming Out Day 2015.

When You’re Not Caitlyn Jenner, Here’s Why It’s Difficult To Get A Name Change.

Photos that Challenge Conventions of Beauty, Race, and Gender.

Masculinity Is an Anxiety Disorder: Breaking Down the Nerd Box.

This week in Topics Most People Can’t Be Rational About

4 Pro-Gun Arguments We’re Sick of Hearing.

The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens explains what that phrase, “well-regulated militia” has meant and where the interpretation has changed.

Mental Illness is the wrong scapegoat after mass shootings.

The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control Amendment.

The Cult Of The Second Amendment.

This week in Difficult to Classify

How to Cut a Handgun in Half with a Chop Saw.

Science!

FOUND: AN EXTREMELY RARE ANDEAN CAT.

Epigenetic algorithm accurately predicts male sexual orientation.

Fossils Shed New Light on Evolution of Elongated Giraffe Neck.

New Genus, Species of Extinct Hippo-Like Mammal Identified from Unalaska Fossils.

SMALL, BEAVER-LIKE MAMMAL SURVIVED THE DINOSAUR APOCALYPSE.

Scientists have figured out how to store memory with light.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

31 Days of Halloween: Universal vs. Hammer — which classic horror studio reigns supreme?

The Great Leonard Nimoy Reads H.G. Wells’ Seminal Sci-Fi Novel The War of the Worlds.

MIND MELD: The Books That Made Us Love Science Fiction and Fantasy.

You Can’t Write About THAT: Staying True to Your Writing Passion in the Age of the McBook.

Culture war news:

Look, Mom, I Shouted My Abortion – But My Story Is Just One of Millions.

The Downfall of the Ex-Gay Movement. Not to make fun of the very article I’m linking to, but the downfall was simple: lying liars peddling lies.

Those who decry both abortion and gun control are anti-woman, not pro-life.

How a Blonde Tattooed Texas Girl Became an ISIS Twitter Star.

Slut-Shaming Through the Disclosure of HIV Positive Status: Danny Pintauro’s Recent HIV Positive Announcement.

Tennessee County Commission To Ask God Not To Murder Them Over Same-Sex Marriage. “WE adopt this Resolution before God that He pass us by in His Coming Wrath and not destroy our County as He did Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities”

The Internet fought the Pope—and the Internet won.

The Shady Group That Played Pope Francis.

Alabama Supreme Court Justice wants the state to “stand up to SCOTUS” on same-sex marriage.

This Week in the Clown Car

Why Mike Huckabee Picked a Fight With Frito-Lay Over Gay Doritos.

Carson slams Obama for Oregon visit with shooting victims’ families.

Bobby Jindal Proudly Announces Meteoric Rise to Tie for Fifth Place in Iowa Poll.

Huckabee contradicts himself in calling for Frito-Lay boycott.

This week in Other Politics:

Trevor Noah destroys GOP pro-life, pro-NRA hypocrisy: “They’re more like comic book collectors. Human life only holds value until you take it out of the package”.

Politico Finds a New Way to Call President Obama Uppity.

Bernie Sanders Claims He’s a Longtime Champion of Marriage Equality. It’s Just Not True. I love Bernie, but he would be better served to tell the truth about his years of opposition to marriage in favor of civil unions.

News for queers and our allies:

Pledge to go purple for #SpiritDay 2015.

This Mom’s Inspiring Message to Her Transgender Daughter Will Move You to Tears.

Bryant assistant coach Chris Burns comes out.

Trans guy captures his transition by snapping a selfie every day for 3 years.

U.S. senator urges probe into Cold War-era antigay blackmail plot.

On Savage Lovecast, Equality Matters’ Rachel Percelay Describes How Fox News Turns Transgender People Into Villains.

Farewells:

The Card Catalog Is Officially Dead.

Things I wrote:

Groovie g/h/o/u/l/s/ goals.

Jack-o-lanterns for everyone!

Infinity In Your Mailbox – more of why I love sf/f.

Weekend Update 10/03/2015: More varmints among the sheep.

Videos!

Coming Out Advice With The Rhodes Bros! | National Coming Out Day:

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

WELL-STRUNG: The Devil Went Down to Georgia (feat. J.S. Bach):

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

Sam Smith – Writing’s On The Wall (from Spectre):

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

Years & Years – Eyes Shut:

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

Gladys Knight – Just a Little:

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

Friday Links (straight boys in dresses edition)

Michael Milo, 16, a student at Kingsville District High in the dress he wore for photo day at the school. Link to full story below. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)
Michael Milo, 16, a student at Kingsville District High in the dress he wore for photo day at the school. Link to full story below. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)
We have exited September, that most blessèd month and now we’ve begun October, the month of pumpkins and falling leaves and spooks and costumes!

It is Friday, and normally I would write something silly about the end of the week and the joy of the weekend. But there was some horrible news yesterday (which I’m sure you’ve heard about, and if not, there are links below) that happened in a small community that is in my region, and through which I’ve driven a few times, and many decades ago occasionally competed against students from the school in question. So I’m having trouble coming up with anything terribly fun to say.

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Link of the Week

AUDIENCES HAVEN’T BECOME TOO SENSITIVE, BUT COMEDIANS HAVE.

This week in Stupid People

Lucky non-virgin gals spared marrying whiny man-children after MRA launches #NoHymenNoDiamond drive.

This week in Topics Most People Can’t Be Rational About

Oregon shooting on college campus leaves at least 10 dead.

Another: The 45th Mass Shooting in America in 2015.

President Obama is right that guns kill more Americans than terrorism. So do lots of other things.

Deaths from gun violence vs. deaths from terrorism, in one chart.

President Obama Laments Mass Shootings Becoming ‘Routine’ After Oregon School Massacre.

This week in Difficult to Classify

What it means to be a great product.

This week in Heart-wrenching

Lance Sanderson Suspended From School Following Attempt To Bring Same-Sex Date To Homecoming.

Science!

GIANT KILLER LIZARD LIVED WITH AUSTRALIANS IN ICE AGE.

Human Ancestors Could Hear Frequencies Used in Speech.

Earth – Why are we the only human species still alive?

Scientists Discover First Ever Glowing Sea Turtle.

ARE VIRUSES ALIVE? NEW EVIDENCE SAYS YES.

Save the Parasites (Seriously).

No boys allowed: Snake mom has ‘virgin birth’.

NEWLY DISCOVERED SNAILS ARE SO SMALL THEY FIT IN THE EYE OF A NEEDLE.

It’s Time to Free Lolita, a Puget Sound Killer Whale That’s Been Held Captive in Florida for 45 Years.

Mars: New hypothesis on the origin of the megafloods.

Could these dull-looking fossils shake our understanding of evolution to the core? Siberian find pushes back emergence of first vertebrates by 20 MILLION years.

Researchers Devise Way to Determine Color from Fossils.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

Gender Discrimination in SFF Awards. Lots of cool charts looking at the situation over many years and in may different ways!

Urban fantasy fiction: there’s more to it than sex with were-leopards.

Guest Post: A Salesman Is You!.

Writing Better Trans Characters. “I reject the idea that trans characters should only be written by trans people because cis folk are bound to get it wrong. While there are some really fine trans writers, there simply aren’t enough of us in the world to do what is needed.”

Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules of Writing.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant: Early Thoughts.

8 Ways to Write and Finish a Work of Fiction.

Hear Ray Bradbury’s Beloved Sci-Fi Stories as Classic Radio Dramas.

Culture war news:

Missouri Finds Planned Parenthood Didn’t Mishandle Fetal Tissue.

What Pope Francis Really Said About (Gay) Marriage — and What He Did Not. “lso sitting right before Francis during his address to Congress were three of the five Supreme Court justices – a majority of the majority – who ruled for marriage equality in June: Justices Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Kennedy. The pope had his big chance to be clear and emphatic about the terrible thing they’d supposedly done and he blew it? Maybe he just didn’t care all that much.”

Rebutting “Every civilization that accepted homosexuality failed.”

Mark Levin: The Supreme Court Is Imposing Secular Sharia.

Anti-Gay Evangelist Gets Smacked Down on National TV — and It’s Beautiful.

Pope Sides With Marriage License-Denying Clerk.

Why Pope Francis’s meeting with Kim Davis isn’t surprising.

How Pope Francis Undermined the Goodwill of His Trip and Proved to Be a Coward.

Alabama Strips Lesbian Mother of Parental Rights.

Ore. bakers refuse to pay damages in gay wedding cake case.

Alabama, Where ID Is Required to Vote, Closes DMVs in Most “Black Belt” Counties.

Boy takes stance on gender identity by wearing dress to picture day.

Reminder: The GOP crusade against Planned Parenthood is built on outright lies.

This Week in the Clown Car

The right-wing’s religious delusions are killing us — and them.

Carly Fiorina Makes a Lot of Stuff Up About Everything.

Rubio sides with BILL CLINTON on family and medical leave as he proposes business tax credits to pay for voluntary expansion.

Ben Carson’s Religious Beliefs Come Under Scrutiny.

Mike Huckabee Takes on Rainbow-Colored Doritos.

Trump Embraces “Operation Wetback” As Model For Mass Deportation.

Ted Cruz is toast: It’s not just that he won’t be president — his days in the Senate are numbered, too.

Ben Carson is plain nuts: The 7 most stupefying statements by the GOP’s favorite neurosurgeon. (This article only looks at the last year or so… he’s saying stuff this crazy or worse in political speeches since 2011.)

This week in Other Politics:

Bernie Sanders writes for the Observer: Time to expand Social Security: It has paid every nickel owed, through good times and bad.

I exposed Steve Scalise’s white nationalist past — and yet he may soon become even more powerful.

Ben Carson pulls into statistical TIE with Donald Trump as Hillary Clinton ‘feels the Bern’ and sees her lead over Sanders dwindle to 7 points.

Obama defends LGBT rights, rebutting religious freedom claims.

Gay Conservative Jimmy LaSalvia on Leaving the GOP (And Why You Should, Too!) (I guess we should be glad for his escape from an abusive relationship with the political party that hates gays… If only he would also come to his senses…)

Top Indiana GOPer Resigns (And Blames Canada) After Sex Video Emerges.

It’s even worse: Republican Who Blocked Revenge-Porn Protections Is Victim of Revenge Porn.

House Republicans repudiate McCarthy comments on Benghazi probe. Video seems to play automatically.

This Week in Diversity

Open Letter to Terry Gross about Dialect, Vocal Fry, and Discrimination.

How I Found Out My Husband Is Gay.

Geena Davis: ‘After Thelma & Louise, people said things would improve for women in film. They didn’t’.

EVERYBODY’S INVITED TO MY ALL-MALE, ALL-WHITE LITERARY PANEL!

News for queers and our allies:

I was at the Stonewall riots. The movie ‘Stonewall’ gets everything wrong.

The Rise of the Two-Spirits.

Advocating for the Bisexual Community: A Reading List.

Smithers Will Get His Long-Awaited Coming Out Moment On This Season Of The Simpsons.

Transgender Inmate Wins Historic Case Against Prison Guards Who Assaulted Her.

Discharge Change Lifts Burdens for Gay Veteran.

Respecting gay rights is good for business, global companies say.

Tom Boy?

This Transgender Man’s ER Story Will Horrify You.

Ellen Page Made a Bold Statement About Religious Liberty Laws on The “Late Show”.

The obligatory Hugos post-mortems:

I wasn’t going to do any more of these, but then a friend (@jayblanc) posted this on twitter: “We made all the sad puppies cry, and then we discover salt water on Mars? This can’t be coincidence!”

Farewells:

The Rev. John J. McNeill, Jesuit priest who became famed LGBT activist, dies at 90.

Things I wrote:

Weekend Update 9/26/2015: in the land of crazy.

Sunday Funnies, part 15.

Birthday not very quizzacious.

The worst part of censorship….

Varmints in sheep’s clothing.

Changelings on Distant Worlds – more of why I love sf/f.

Videos!

Troye Sivan – FOOLS (Blue Neighbourhood Part 2/3):

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

Erik Hassle – Natural Born Lovers:

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

I Am Karate – Elevate:

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

Friday Links (quizzaciously exceptional birthday edition)

I haven't been this old before, it's true! (click to embiggen)
I haven’t been this old before, it’s true! (click to embiggen)

It’s already the fourth Friday in September, that most blessèd month! The autumnal equinox has occurred and I check my calendar to see what’s next and… oh, that’s right. Today I am officially another year older. Wow. How did that happen?

And thank goodness it’s FRIDAY!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared:

Link of the Week

Man Builds ‘Dog Train’ To Take Rescued Pups Out On Little Adventures.

This week in Not as Noble as They Want You to Think

Seth Godin on Ad Blocking.

Ad Blocking Irony.

The Mobile Video Ad Lie: NYPost.com site loads 10Mb on iPhone, with no videos or video ads to be seen.

How Much of Your Audience is Fake? Marketers thought the Web would allow perfectly targeted ads. Hasn’t worked out that way.

John Gruber on why online ad networks are so user-hostile.

This week in Bad History

22 Hilarious Excerpts From Scathing Reviews of “Stonewall.”

A ‘straight-acting’ problem: why mass market gay films increasingly fail us all.

This week in Evil Greedy People

A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests.

Science!

Riddle of the Ages Solved: Where Did the Philistines Come From?

New duck-billed dinosaur found in Alaska, researchers say.

On World Rhino Day 2015, Some Things about Rhinos You Might Not Know.

Medieval skeleton found in roots of toppled tree VIDEO.

World’s Oldest Sea Turtle Fossil Discovered.

Siberia could become pockmarked with giant craters: Global warming is releasing ‘explosive and violent’ levels of methane under the ground, warn experts.

No Sign of Galactic Super-Civilizations.

The astonishing village where little girls turn into boys aged 12.

Scientists found something unexpected in this eerie new image of Pluto.

Linking brains: Researchers at UW say they’ve done it.

State Officials Are Preparing for Another Year of Continued Drought.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

Your body isn’t your world: The heroes of Mad Max and disability.

The Six Swans.

Some thoughts about Tragic Queer Narratives.

They Don’t Stand For That: Symbols, Vampires, and Faith.

Comics historian Craig Yoe celebrates Banned Books Week with the Forbidden Comics bundle.

11 Sci-Fi Books Every Woman Should Read. I’ve only read 3½ of these!

This week in Geek

15 Minutes of Fame: The AFK Tavern, where everybody knows your name.

Culture war news:

This is why they have such hate: Coulter, Trump, Carson and the real history behind right-wing intolerance. This is an awesome historical analysis of the trajectory of anti-semetism, anti-Papism and other sources of rightwing thought…

This Guy Shut Down The World’s Largest Gay “Cure” Group.

Harlem Hate Pastor Has Must-Watch Manic Meltdown at Protestors Outside His Church.

That “Old Time Religion” Isn’t As Old As You Think.

TIFF Review: Roland Emmerich’s Gay Rights Drama ‘Stonewall’.

‘Gay’ Doritos Prompt Freak-Out.

U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies.

Not for Queer Eyes Only.

See How Religious Homophobia Promotes Child Abuse.

Emails show Indiana damaged by religious liberty law.

Kim Davis’ Book Deal? It’s Not Happening. There’s a word missing from that headline, “yet”

The Search for Kim Davis’s Gay Friends.

Kim Davis’s One Gay Friend Is Angry.

Defiant clerk Kim Davis confiscated and altered all the marriage licences issued while she was in jail. Bonus points if you can name all the subtle and not-so-subtle biases in the story…

Stop calling Pope Francis progressive: You might love his pastoral style, but don’t fool yourself on Vatican substance.

This Week in the Clown Car

The Ted Cruz Problem Is the Reason Trump Ducks — and Must Duck — the Obama Birther Question.

Colbert bests Trump.

Fiorina Spins a New Lie, and Her Issues With Truth Look Compulsive.

This week in Other Politics:

Obama has vastly changed the face of the federal bureaucracy.

The GOP’s Deeply Bigoted Week.

McConnell makes first move to avoid shutdown.

The War to End Slavery Didn’t.

One big reason Congress ignores the poor: they don’t vote.

This Week in Diversity

“I’m afraid of men on the Internet.”

Hillary Clinton To Lena Dunham: I’m ‘Puzzled’ By Women Who Say They Aren’t Feminists.

Why Asking Is Not ‘Outing’ in 2015.

Goshen College withdraws from Council of Christian Colleges and Universities following changes to LGBT non-discrimination policy, hiring practices.

Gender Liberation: Leaving Men Behind.

If You Think ‘Straight-Acting’ Is An Acceptable Term, You’re An A**hole.

Here’s Why We Need To Stop Calling Pumpkin Spice A ‘White People Thing.’

News for queers and our allies:

Editorial: Two more small steps for gay rights.

A Scottish boy couldn’t stand a preacher’s homophobic rant, so he whipped out his bagpipes.

The LGBT+ community doesn’t need fair-weather allies.

9 questions about gender identity and being transgender you were too embarrassed to ask.

On Loving a Bisexual Man.

Farewells:

Jack Larson (1928-2015).

The Washington Post: How ‘Superman’ ruined a gay actor’s life — then saved it. Jack Larson (‘Jimmy Olsen’) dead at 87.

Yogi Berra: businessman and gay-rights advocate was more than a lovable dope.

Things I wrote:

Weekend Update 9/20/2015: Otters and Bi-people.

Scene Essentials.

Invisible? Difficult to see what others have erased.

The Original Wizard School – more of why I love sf/f.

Videos!

The Zipf Mystery:

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

Cabaret – willkommen (because some days you just need Alan Cumming to sing to you):

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

Disclosure – Jaded:

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

DRAGON CON 2015 – PART 1 – EPIC COSPLAY PARTY:

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

Friday Links (asthmatic otter edition)

Mishka the sea otter diagnosed with asthma © King 5 News
Mishka the sea otter diagnosed with asthma © King 5 News (click to embiggen)
It’s already the third Friday in September, that most blessèd month! Soon it will be the autumnal equinox, as the horrors of the burning season begin to fade away.

And thank goodnees it’s FRIDAY!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily. This is not all of the links I meant to share, because there was a problem with the system I use to save them and I lost a couple days worth. But I probably collect too many most weeks, anyway, so enjoy:

Link of the Week

Women Trying To Say “No” Politely In Western Art History.

This week in Stupid Over Reactions

(Click to embiggen)
(Click to embiggen)
Muslim teen Ahmed Mohamed creates clock, shows teachers, gets arrested.

Ahmed Mohamed swept up, ‘hoax bomb’ charges swept away as social media takes up teen’s cause.

Ahmed Mohamed Is Not the Only Student of Color to Get Handcuffed for a Science Project.

Science!

Sea otter learns to use inhaler at Seattle Aquarium.

Right-wingers are worse at swearing than left-wingers.

New Study Finds Link Between Homophobia And Psychoticism.

“Picture yourself as a stereotypical male.” Study shows spatial intelligence not as clear-cut as thought.

One Winning Move: 4000 Physicists Held a Convention in Vegas, Were Asked Never to Come Back.

Baltimore Sun publishes hack job letter on HPV vaccine. I dismantle it claim by claim.

Jupiter’s Moon Io is Even More Hellish Than We Thought.

Is there a Planet X, a ‘massive perturber,’ hidden beyond Pluto?

It will take a year for New Horizons to send all of its Pluto data back to Earth.

New Horizons space probe heading to Kuiper Belt object in post-Pluto mission.

Million-year-old monkey fossil found underwater in cave.

‘Lightning claw’ dinosaur found in Australia: 23-ft long predator is the largest carnivore ever to be found in the region.

The world’s longest volcano chain discovered in Australia.

New Clues about the Evolution of Dogs.

Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin On Our Next Evolutionary Challenge: Moving Past Survival of the Fittest.

Are Some People Hard-Wired To Be Homophobic?

Earth’s record streak of record heat keeps on sizzling.

EXXON EXECUTIVES WARNED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE IN 1970S.

Nasa releases new photos of Pluto that ‘make you feel you are there.’

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

AN OPEN LETTER TO DISNEY: PLEASE BRING BACK KIM POSSIBLE.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy at Emmy Awards: Who’s Won, Who’s Been Fracked.

Seek out new worlds of science fiction – there’s so much happening out there.

Culture war news:

5 new ways Pope Francis is sticking it to the Christian right.

The ‘First Amendment Defense Act’ is the Vilest ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill of Our Time.

Gay couple gets marriage license as Kentucky clerk Kim Davis stays out of sight.

Texas’ Law-Breaking Attorney General Is Denying Gay People Equal Rights—Again.

Kim Davis is not the only public official refusing to hand out marriage licenses.

Gays Get Unalienable Rights Too.

What About All the People Jailed in America Just for Being Gay?

Homophobic histories of Nazism ignore Hitler’s war against gay men.

Can Game Theory Help to Prevent Rape?

This Week in the Clown Car

(Click to embiggen)
(Click to embiggen)
11 Distortions, Misrepresentations and Outright Lies in the GOP Debate. This article does not list all of the outright lies told by Republican candidates at the debate.

Rick Perry megadonor wants his $5 million back.

What Republicans Ignored During the Second Debate: Gun Violence, Paid Leave, LGBT Discrimination….

(There were many, many more outrageous headlines regarding the clowns scrambling to out-bigot each over for the Republican nomination; but sometimes enough is enough.)

This week in Other Politics:

The big secret behind Bernie Sanders’ surge in the polls.

Take that, charter schools: Why a Washington court decision will force accountability to a movement that needs it badly.

The Republican base’s “patriotic” treason: The shocking new poll that exposes the dangerous extremism of the American right.

Poll: Majority of Americans say Kentucky clerk should have to issue licenses.

A Group of Texans Thinks It Can Get The State GOP To Endorse Secession.

Obama on debate: Nothing patriotic ‘about talking down America’ (with VIDEO).

This Week in Diversity

If you like Return Of The Jedi but hate the Ewoks, you understand feminist criticism.

12 Women They Didn’t Tell You Were Queer In History Class.

How My Rights in This Country Will Change By the End of This Article.

The Problem With Diversity.

Mason Darrow and Princeton football show how far we’ve come.

Matt Damon apologizes over ‘Project Greenlight’ and ‘whitesplaining.’ – except it isn’t an apology…

News for queers and our allies:

Judge David Bunning, The Anti Kim Davis?

MASON DARROW HAS BEEN EMBRACED BY THE PRINCETON FOOTBALL TEAM SINCE HE TOLD THEM HE’S GAY. NOW HE COMES OUT PUBLICLY DAYS BEFORE KICKOFF.

A Look At The Promiscuity ‘Culture War’ In The Gay Community (VIDEO).

Righting a Stubborn Wrong: Anchorage Revisits Law Protecting LGBT Community.

Stonewall Featurette Focuses on Gender-Fluid Character “Ray/Ramona.”

Farewells:

Swiss font legend Adrian Frutiger dies.

Things I wrote:

Homemade Rockets and Invisible Moons: more of why I love sf/f.

Weekend Update 9/12/15: It’s about ethics….

Videos!

Disclosure & Sam Smith cover Hotline Bling in the Live Lounge:

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

Arguing About Kim Davis at the GOP Debate:

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

Tim Cook On Speaking Up For Equality:

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

BECA – METEOR:

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

Atlas Genius – Molecules [Official Music Video]:

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

Asthmatic sea otter learns to use inhaler – longer video than the one in the article:

https://embed.theguardian.com/embed/video/science/video/2015/sep/18/mishka-sea-otter-diagnosed-asthma-inhaler-seattle-video

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

Friday Links (Kids who need our help edition)

COKz1u2WcAQn8KHIt’s the second Friday in September. September, ah, that most blessèd month!

And thank goodnees it’s FRIDAY!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily. This is not all of the links I meant to share, because there was a problem with the system I use to save them and I lost a couple days worth. But I probably collect too many most weeks, anyway, so enjoy:

Link of the Week

Rallying to Help a Homeschooled Christian Kid Who Got Thrown Out After He Came Out.

There are lots of other kids who need our help. Here are a few places you can help:

The True Colors Fund.

BUILDING A MOVEMENT TO END HOMELESSNESS.

The Ali Forney Center.

And the local one I give to regularly: Youth Care.

This week in Difficult to Classify

Why did the FBI show up at this Globalist youth reporter’s house?

Twitter Done Wrong.

Science!

Homo naledi, a new species of human, discovered in a cave in South Africa.

NASA Releases New Image of Mysterious ‘Bright Spots’ on Ceres.

BEHOLD PLUTO IN ALL ITS MAJESTY.

Earth’s magnetic mystery forces scientists to get creative.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

People are talking about a Best Series Hugo proposal...

On the same topic: The format is political.

How gay rights got its start in science fiction.

NO MORE DIVERSITY PANELS, IT’S TIME TO MOVE ON.

Queer Sci-fi/Fantasy Anthology Beyond Goes Above and [Review].

2015 Hugo Analysis: Nominating Stats, Part 1.

SIZE MATTERS: THE EVOLUTION OF UNICORN HORNS.

This week in Geek

The queer masculinity of stealth games. “In games, men’s bodies often represent brute strength. Stealth games are the focal point for an alternative masculinity: sleek, illusory, sensitive, and self-reflective.”

Culture war news:

We’re getting Kim Davis all wrong: What she reveals about the right’s true motivations.

Let Go of the Fig Leaf.

That’s Me in the Corner, Losing My Religion.

Boss Who Asked Transgender Woman ‘What Are You?’ Agrees To Significant Settlement.

Kim Davis Is Just the Beginning.

This Week in the Clown Car

Ben Carson’s theocratic lie: The pernicious myth of America the “Christian nation.”

Emasculated white men love Donald Trump: The real reason a billionaire bozo rules the GOP.

The secret hidden inside Bush’s tax plan.

Cruz’s second shutdown play rankles fellow Republicans.

Huckabee: Dred Scott Decision “Remains To This Day The Law Of The Land.” The Dred Scott decision was overturned by the 14th Amendment.

This week in Other Politics:

Bernie Sanders stood up for gay soldiers — 16 years before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ended.

RUSSIA SAID TO GET IRAN’S CLEARANCE FOR SYRIA-BOUND FLIGHTS.

The Biggest And Boldest Ideas For How To Stop Rising Inequality.

Reporter Says He Was Fired For Asking If Sen. Vitter Still Hires Prostitutes.

This Week in Racism

Her Name Was Natasha McKenna & No One Will Be Held Responsible For Her Death.

Culture war news:

How Religious Liberty has been used to justify racism, sexism, and slavery throughout history.

The Problem With Religious Exemptions to Gay Rights.

Readers React: Issuing marriage licenses isn’t God’s work.

‘A fag is still a fag’: Texas tent revival uses loud speakers to flood city park with anti-gay hate speech.

This Week in Sexism

Does the Tech Industry Even Deserve Women?

News for queers and our allies:

Are GOP Donors the Key to Passing a Nondiscrimination Bill?

Gay Marriage Is Legal, but We’re Still Not Equal.

Inside the Seattle Clinic That Survived the Darkest Days of AIDS. Being an out gay man in Seattle in the ‘90s myself, I know more than a few of those names in Dr. Shalit’s card file…

In the heat of our nationwide marriage equality victory, can LGBT and allied Americans resist a hate group’s bait?

Things I wrote:

Semi-Precious Stone, Helical or Otherwise: more of why I love sf/f.

We’ve always been here, even in a galaxy far, far away….

Things I wish I could post to Facebook without causing relatives to go bananas….

Storytelling should not be preaching, part 2.

Videos!

Tiger plays with bamboo like a kitten with string:

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

[Official Video] Can’t Sleep Love – Pentatonix:

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

HELL’S CLUB. NEW MASHUP AMDSFILMS (watch it all the way to the end of the credits…):

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

Gareth Thomas: Never Alone tells the story of how the former Wales captain’s greatest fear wasn’t the opposition he faced on the pitch, but the fear of rejection from everything he had known, because of his sexuality:

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

Troye Sivan – WILD (Blue Neighbourhood Part 1/3):

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

My Heart Will Go On – Vintage ’50s Jackie Wilson – Style Celine / Titanic Cover ft. Mykal Kilgore:

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

Friday Links (rescued ginger kittens edition)

Screen-Shot-2015-08-31-at-4.16.34-PMseIt’s the first Friday in September. September, ah, that most blessèd month! Summer is drawing to a close (thank goodness!) and autumn will soon be here! And soon, soon the regular NFL season begins, and my Seahawks mania is only going to get worse.

And, hey, it’s FRIDAY!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Link of the Week

Open Letter to Parents of Gay Kids: This Is Not About You. “Parenting is 100 percent choice. You chose it. When we choose to be parents, we are taking on the responsibility, obligation and honor to love the children we adopt or create. This statement does not come with an asterisk at the end. You don’t get to parent only children who are academically gifted. You don’t get to parent only children who are gifted at sports. You don’t get to parent only healthy children. You don’t get to parent only well behaved children… You get to parent your child, and everything that comes with that.”

Happy News!

Here’s Why I’ve Been Married 8 Times.

Fishermen Rescue Abandoned Kittens that Swam to Their Boat.

Science!

Knotty network could have powered universe’s early growth spurt.

The secret history of “Y’all”: The murky origins of a legendary Southern slang word. Ahem. It is not a slang word, it is a proper second-person pronoun.

5-Foot-Long Spider Relative Found In Iowa.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

A Thing Not to Do When You’re Smart.

11 Reasons Terry Pratchett Is A Literary Genius.

Fantasy is NOT Historically Accurate.

Where no show has gone before: The bisexual future of Other Space.

New Book Roundup: Algorithms Run Amok, the Intergalactic Rum Trade, and a Farewell to Discworld.

This Week in History

Illinois Officials Burned by 1950s Library Purge.

Culture war news:

Since When Are Consensual Sexual Relationships a Threat to National Security?

CNN’s Bizarrely Homophobic Coverage Of The Virginia Shooter.

Is It Called Gay Or Equal Rights?

A Psychiatrist Writing in The New York Times Forgets That First He Should “Do No Harm.”

Here Is All You Need To Prove Bigots Wrong About ‘Traditional Marriage.’

Sadistic Frat Boys Allegedly Attack Gay Man, Strip Him Naked, In Possible Hate Crime.

This Week in Bigots Pretending to be Martyrs

COA_Rm7UsAAU-r5It’s time to remove Kentucky clerk Kim Davis.

‘Old Redneck Hillbilly’ Husband of Kim Davis Has a Warning for Nosey People. ‘Davis compared his wife to the biblical figures Paul and Silas, sent to prison and rescued by God.’

Kim Davis Vows To Use County Office To Spread ‘God’s Word,’ Act As Divine Vessel.

U.S. District Judge Sends Kim Davis to Jail.

‘Homo Terrorists’: Here’s What Kim Davis Supporters Outside The Courthouse Today Are Saying About Gays.

This Week in Sexism

Why Straight White Dudes Don’t Get Offended As Often As Normal People Do. Thanks to Sharpclaw for the link!

News for queers and our allies:

Why I’m Increasingly Frustrated With Closeted Pro Athletes.

Queer Eye for the Messiah Guy.

In a Word, What It Means to Be Pansexual.

ABC Family, Fox are best networks for LGBT representation, GLAAD says.

‘The Sum Of Us’ writer David Stevens on the play’s 25-year influence.

Steve Grand Accepts U.S. Marine’s Invitation to 2015 Marine Corps Ball: WATCH.

The obligatory Hugos post-post-mortems:

My friend, Sharpclaw, who while being a fan of fantasy is not normally that interested in the Hugos, sent this link: Mutiny at the Hugos. I find it hilarious that the people who block-voted the steal much of the ballot claiming that “social justice warriors” had controlled the Hugos for years, are now trying to claim that all of the new voters registering and voting No Award is proof that… the social justice crowd has decided to invade the Hugos and take it away from the people who have always been there. What? There are many other amusing contradictions…

2015 Hugo Analysis: Category Participation. Stat tables and graphs!

Sad Puppies 4 Begins. “Between now and MidAmeriCon II people will expend a million words arguing whether Sad Puppies 4 is a slate or a recommendation list, a Hugo voter registration drive, an outlet for those frustrated with message fiction, a movement to oppose the dread SJWs, or all of the above. But the opening paragraph of Kate Paulk’s Mad Genius Club post about Sad Puppies 4 shows its first priority is gratifying the egos of the organizers…”

Farewells:

Dean Jones Dies: Star Of Disney’s ‘The Love Bug’ And Sondheim’s ‘Company’ Was 84.

Wes Craven, man behind ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Scream,’ dies at 76.

An Outpouring of Reader Reflection After the Death of Oliver Sacks.

Things I wrote:

All we need are goals.

Delusions, discrimination, and hitting pay dirt, part 1.

Delusions and denial in the name of….

Why I hate hay fever reason #5946.

Videos!

The Librarians Trailer : Season 2:

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

Taylor Swift – Wildest Dreams:

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

The Horrible History of Ex-Gay Cures:

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

WELL-STRUNG – Royals (feat. Palladio):

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

Hozier covers Sam Smith’s Lay Me Down in the Live Lounge:

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

Friday Links (cephalopods and crazies edition)

072adb0c4773289eIt’s Friday! The final Friday in August. Most of my news reading was dominated by the aftermath of WorldCon, so there’s a bit more sci fi and fandom news in this week’s links than usual. There was just so much that had to be shared!

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Link of the Week

Watch Foo Fighters Rickroll Westboro Baptist Church. This link has details plus the video. Or scroll down to the videos and just watch…

This week in Difficult to Classify

Giant ball art installation breaks loose in wet weather, hitting parked cars on a street in Toledo, Ohio.

Why I Let My Kids Watch “Inappropriate” TV.

This week in Heart-wrenching

Forever and Ever: Losing My Husband at 24.

Science!

Octopuses Are Not Aliens – Nick Lane’s New Book Explains Why.

Distance Ripples: How Gravitational Waves Work.

A pharaonic murder mystery that was solved with forensic analysis.

Anti-Evolution Creationists are ignorant of what a species is.

We Now Know For Sure How Life Did Not Begin on Earth.

Sexual orientation is much more complex than straight, gay or bisexual.

New study finds that homosexuality not ‘un-African’.

Why Do Some People Believe in Conspiracy Theories? “People who endorse conspiracy theories may be more likely to engage in conspiratorial behaviors…”

Stephen Hawking says he has a way to escape from a black hole.

Rare South Pacific nautilus seen after 30-year absence.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

bozza_futuro9aCatherine Lundoff on LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy Before 1970.

Alternate Timeline Hugo Awards.

Why We Need Queer Escapist Lit.

We’ve Always Been Here in the Fandom. Why the WIRED article on the Hugos misses the mark.

I read the 100 “best” fantasy and sci-fi novels – and they were shockingly offensive.

Samuel R. Delany Speaks: The award-winning novelist discusses the intersection of race, sexual identity, and science fiction.

Who Was Afraid of Ray Bradbury & Science Fiction? The FBI, It Turns Out (1959).

Science Fiction Hasn’t Gotten More Liberal—Its Fans Have Gotten More Conservative.

Black to the future: afrofuturism and tech power.

Science Fiction Predicts Our Future for the Next 800,000 Years!

Culture war news:

Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted.

Bakers’ Surprise ‘Love’ Cakes Spark a Big Response From Gay Rights Groups Who Received Them. They sent cakes and urged people to go see a truly awful and ludicrous anti-gay film. Ooooookay…

“That’s not true, but even if it were….”

Some People Want My Son Dead, and Here Is Why You Should Care.

Dear Duke Students, Life Gets Uncomfortable.

GAY FRIENDLY CHURCH COVERS HOMOPHOBIC GRAFFITI WITH RAINBOWS.

Here’s How Outrageous The Pay Gap Between CEOs And Workers Is.

This Week in the Clown Car

Donald Trump Just Stopped Being Funny: Win or lose, Trump’s campaign threatens to unleash the Great American Stupid.

Donald Trump Is Not a Populist. He’s the Voice of Aggrieved Privilege.

It’s just a total coincidence that racists and conservatives really like Trump’s anti-immigrant crusade.

Ted Cruz Appears To Come Out Against The Civil Rights Act of 1964: In Bizarre Moment, Cruz Says Gays Should Be Able To Discriminate Against Christians Too.

Hispanics Really, Really Hate Donald Trump.

Jorge Ramos Commits Journalism, Gets Immediately Attacked by Journalists.

A Lesbian Officer Maligned in Ted Cruz’s Religious Liberty Ad Tells Her Side of the Story.

Jeb Bush wrote to gay couple: Your relationship shouldn’t have the same status as ‘marraige’. He consistently misspelled marriage throughout…

Trump-ward, Christian Soldiers? “Let me get this straight. If I want the admiration and blessings of the most flamboyant, judgmental Christians in America, I should marry three times, do a queasy-making amount of sexual boasting, verbally degrade women, talk trash about pretty much everyone else while I’m at it, encourage gamblers to hemorrhage their savings in casinos bearing my name and crow incessantly about how much money I’ve amassed?”

This week in Other Politics:

Police secretly track cellphones to solve routine crimes.

Obama should give discrimination its two-week notice.

Georgia County Admits To Illegally Disenfranchising Voters.

This Week in Sexism

Who walks away.

Alison Bechdel Would Like You to Call It the “Bechdel-Wallace Test,” ThankYouVeryMuch.

News for queers and our allies:

UPDATED: NOM Hands Over Donor List From Maine Campaign Against Same-Sex Marriage – Details. Years after the U.S. Supreme Court refused their appeal of the state’s campaign finance laws, they turn over the rest of the evidence.

We were here: The gay rub of history comes to St. Louis.

how queer rappers are approaching sex differently.

Silencing the Screaming Queens: Roland Emmerich’s ‘Stonewall’ and the Erasure of Queer Rage.

This Gay Couple Asked All Their Bridesmaids To Wear Wedding Dresses.

The Unseen World of LGBT Homeless Youths: In his new book, Ryan Berg details the difficulties of LGBT kids caught in a broken system—and his struggle to help them.

Some Thoughts On My 30th Wedding Anniversary in the Summer of Equal Marriage.

Haters At Gay Pride Parade Were No Match For This Kid And His Rainbow Balloons.

The obligatory Hugos post-mortems:

The Hugo trophy given out this year. Designed by Matthew Dockrey, photo by Kevin Standlee.
The 2015 Hugo trophy. Designed by Matthew Dockrey, photo by Kevin Standlee. (Click to embiggen)
I Went to the Hugo Awards in Spokane This Weekend. Here’s What I Saw.

Hugos & Puppies: Peeling The Onion. “When it comes to debating strangers with radically different perspectives, you sometimes encounter what I refer to as Onion Arguments: seemingly simple questions that can’t possibly be answered to either your satisfaction or your interlocutor’s because their ignorance of concepts vital to whatever you might say is so lacking, so fundamentally incorrect, that there’s no way to answer the first point without first explaining eight other things in detail.”

On the SF/F genre and a-holes. “We all have conservative friends and acquaintances who aren’t a-holes, and we don’t seem to have a big problem with them unless they’re crazy bigots like [Vox Day]. We have a problem with a-holes.”

On the Hugo Awards controversy, Sad Puppies, and why there are no winners here. “I haven’t voted in several years, when I did I voted for stories that I loved (plus, to be honest, stories written by my friends)—as do most readers. If readers deliberately voted for stories about gay characters and people of color, perhaps it’s because [those stories] speak of “alienation,” which a great many readers of science fiction happen to have experienced (readers of science fiction tend to be natural outsiders).”

How the 2015 Hugos proved against all odds that SF is becoming more international and more diverse.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it leans towards telling Theodore Beale to shut the hell.

“Unfortunately for your side George R.R. Martin was caught.” “If you think George was “caught” doing something illicit or furtive, at a party to which he invited hundreds of people, many of them merrily live-tweeting and texting and posting photos online, you’re a moron.”

I don’t know how I’m going to keep satirizing the Sad Puppies at this rate….

Wall Street Journal: No ‘Puppy’ Love at Science Fiction’s Hugo Awards.

2015 HUGO AWARDS – THE YEAR OF THE BEST CASE SCENARIO. Though I prefer another friend’s phrase: “The least worst outcome.”

WORLDCON, HUGOS, ETC.

Thieves, Liars, and Why We Care.

ON THE HUGOS, SAD PUPPIES, GAMERGATE, GAY MARRIAGE, BLACK LIVES MATTER, AND THE CONFEDERATE FLAG. “In the face of changing demographics and shifting conversations about equality, a small but furious minority of people with a vested interest in defending the status quo are able to project an overblown presence on social media and in the press, claiming to represent some sort of silent majority that has been intimidated into silence at the hands of ruthless progressives who eat their young, or something… But, instead of waking the silent majority to rally around their flag, the opposite keeps happening.”

Things I wrote:

And the Hugo goes to…. Not just the Hugo winners, I also list all the other awards announced that night.

It isn’t that complicated…. In which I drew a lesson from my experiences with an award, which sadly some others have not…

We are all Hugo….

So many books, so little time….

Mortality, Im- and Otherwise: more of why I love sf/f.

Videos!

[Official Video] Cheerleader – Pentatonix (OMI Cover):

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

Dave Audé ft Olivia Newton-John & Chloe Lattanzi “You Have To Believe” (That’s Olivia & her daughter…):

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

AVICII & RICK ASTLEY – Never Gonna Wake You Up (NilsOfficial Mashup):

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

Foo Fighters Rick Roll Westboro Baptist Church:

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

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: LGBT Discrimination (HBO):

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

Octopus to shrimp: “Gotcha!”:

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

Friday Links (acts of kindness edition)

quickmeme.com
quickmeme.com
It’s Friday! The third Friday in August. I’ve been feeling especially worn out most days this week, so don’t have much particularly clever to say.

Anyway, here is a collection of some of the things that I ran across over the course of the week which struck me as worthy of being shared. Sorted into categories with headings so you can skip more easily:

Link of the Week

A girl I used to know.

This week in Difficult to Classify

An Open Letter to People Thinking About Checking to See if Their Husbands or Wives Were On Ashley Madison.

The Bully’s Pulpit: On the elementary structure of domination.

Relentlessly Gay’ yard donations to be returned, Overlea woman says. I’m always fearful of developments like this when funny stories come through the pipeline…

Happy News!

Seattle police deliver baby after pulling over speeding car.

Seattle police department receives thank you from father of the newborn.

Science!

Here’s What Actually Gets Terrorists To Tell The Truth — And It’s Not Torture.

The 10 things you’ve always wanted to know about penises but were too afraid to ask.

Glass paint could keep metal roofs and other structures cool even on sunny days.

We have autism all wrong: The radical new approach we need to understand and treat it.

Corn Wars: The farm-by-farm fight between China and the United States to dominate the global food supply.

The Network is Hostile: A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering.

Weird things start to happen when you stare into someone’s eyes for 10 minutes.

Existence of a Solar System Twice the Age of Ours –“Has Far-Reaching Implications.”

Scientists find how obesity gene works, a clue to treatment.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculation!

Data, books, and bias: an analysis of awards.

FIVE REASONS TO LOVE WOMEN WHO LOVE COMICS.

How Snoopy Killed Peanuts.

IN YOUR FACE JAM: Deadpool Ain’t My Idea of Queer Representation.

Why Midnighter Is So Important For Queer Fans.

Culture war news:

These religious clowns should scare you: GOP candidates’ gullible, lunatic faith is a massive character flaw.

The sleeper issue in the ‘gay wedding cake’ controversy. Dear reporter: that isn’t a sleeper issue, it is the ONLY issue. It’s why the bigots keep losing these cases.

The Way It Was: The Beatles ruled. The mini was in. I was seventeen, and pregnant. What happened next is what could happen again.

Civilities: Why can you fly the rainbow flag but I can’t fly the Confederate flag?

John Oliver’s “Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption” Church Exposes Faith-Based Fraud.

Christian pastor lashes out at ‘false reverend’ John Oliver for mocking predatory televangelists. Thanks to @sharpclaw for the link!

So, college “p.c. culture” stifles comedy? Ever hear a comedian sh*t on the American Dream at a Wal-Mart shareholders meeting?

Conservative pastor: “Stoning gays is the mindset of God.”

Pastor Who Said Stoning Gays Is God’s ‘Mindset’ Is Shocked People Think He Supports Stoning Gays.

Dr. Steve Hotze wages war on “homofascists.”

Family Values Activist Josh Duggar Had a Paid Ashley Madison Account.

This Week in the Clown Car

Carly Fiorina was a Complete Failure as CEO at HP: She is Lying About her “Success”.

Donald Trump’s First Policy Plan Is Even More Racist Than You Think It Is. (TL;dr: opposition to the 14th Amendment has ALWAYS been racist)

Mike Huckabee’s Support of Sexual Predators Isn’t Just Limited to His Defense of Josh Duggar.

Donald Trump’s appalling reaction to a hate crime committed in his name.

This week in Other Politics:

Progressive Groups Ask Obama To End Bush-Era Religious Protection. The rightwing group’s analysis: doing this might make it harder for groups using discriminatory hiring practice to get taxpayer subsidies: exactly. That’s the point!

This Week in Racism

Misunderstanding Forgiveness.

IA Radio Host Jan Mickelson: Enslave Undocumented Immigrants Unless They Leave – Mickelson, Who Recently Hosted Walker, Fiorina, Carson, And Santorum, Asked, “What’s Wrong With Slavery?” Can’t you just feel the christian love?

Wing-nuts with guns & dreams of a race war: Inside the dangerous obsessions of right-wing extremists.

This Week in Stupidity

Another Oblivious Artist Comes to Detroit, Accidentally Lets Tiger Loose. “Another!”

Accidental shooting takes place at Oklahoma ‘Muslim-free’ store.

This Week in Sexism

Comfortable misogyny.

I’m tired of being kind to creepy men in order to stay safe.

News for queers and our allies:

First Baptist Church in South Carolina hit for allowing same-sex union, gay ministers. This is a big deal, even though it will have little effect on other Baptist churches.

Boys Like Me.

If 43% of young people aren’t straight or gay, why do only 2% identify as bi?

Spotlight: Queer Books, Diverse Books.

Michael Sam Was No Jackie Robinson, But …Gay Athletes Still Owe Him.

Farewells:

Yvonne Craig, R.I.P..

Yvonne Craig, Best Known As ‘Batgirl,’ Dies At 78.

Things I wrote:

Weekend update (8/15/2015): of greedy bigots and a rescued whale.

Leopard spots and sheep’s clothing, part 3.

Uphill battle or slippery slope? Depends on which side you’re on….

Computerized Clods and Squeamish Scoundrels: more of why I love sf/f.

Videos!

Silent film footage taken in 1909 by the Thomas Edison Co. at “Stormfield” Mark Twain’s Redding, CT, one year before Twain’s death:

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TFG Film & Tape has performed a digital restoration to the 1909 Edison film of Mark Twain. The image has been flipped left to right to correct the camera-to-subject orientation. It has had it’s speed corrected from the camera frame rate of the day. The detail has been enhanced dramatically bringing out visuals never before seen. The fluctuations in the exposure have been reduced markedly making the image much more pleasing to watch:

Embedding is disabled, so click here.

New Order – Restless (Official Video) interesting use of Arthurian imagery:

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Breath and Sound – Tom Goss feat. Matt Alber:

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El SMS (a sweet little short film):

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