[links] Link salad gets checked for fleas and barricades of embassies
Rick Kleffle, with a podcast including me reading a bit from the beginning of Calamity of So Long a Life
Why I hate the myth of the suffering artist - It is absurd and insulting to assume artists are assisted by despair or hunger in a way that, say, plumbers are not. (Via @ce_murphy.)
Copying Is Not Theft - Hmmm…
The Bacon Coffin - For when John Scalzi becomes a vampire. (Via my Dad.)
Boston University scientists discover evidence humans used fire 1 million years ago
We Can Survive Killer Asteroids - But It Won’t Be Easy - Duck! And cover!
Programmable 'smart sand' can assume any shape - If you don't think this is cool, you are dead to me.
Future telescope array drives development of exabyte processing
Flying car completes its first test flight, could be on sale by end of the year - 1970 called, they want their future back. Now, where's my jetpack?
Oil Scare Turns FedEx On To Energy Efficiency - Electric vehicles? Come on. Any Republican can tell you that's total Kenyan Muslim socialism. Even when one of American's leading companies is doing the investing.
Gay pride flag raised at a US base in Afghanistan - Go, go, go!
Charlie debunks 2012 nonsense - Why does this even need debunking? As profoundly counterfactual and willfully ignorant as evolution denial and climate change denial are, at least I can see where they're coming from in a cultural and political sense. But 2012 paranoia?
Wisconsin Planned Parenthood attacked with 'explosive device' - Remember kids, according to the Republican party, it's not terrorism if good conservative white people are doing the bombing and the killing.
Six dead in shooting at Oakland university; suspect arrested in Alameda - Thank god for the NRA and the GOP standing up for everyone's right to their defense of essential liberties.
A Return to... You Call This Sanity? - Scrivener's Error is interesting on ebooks and the politics of education. To start with, if you call anything that does not meet your preconceived notion from the hard Right "liberal" - including centrist positions a liberal might well call "conservative" - you're going to get a rather distorted picture. Then, too, exactly how does one judge the political orientation of introductory calculus-based physics? Is it a "liberal-oriented" course if it includes "modern physics"? How about if you offer a non-calculus-based alternative that mentions energy production as an example for study? Is a linguistics course that includes consideration of non-Western languages inherently "liberal", especially if it is not based on Latin and ancient Greek?
Permitted handguns will be allowed in RNC's 'clean zone' - oping to head off violent protesters during the Republican National Convention, Mayor Bob Buckhorn has proposed a litany of items that will be considered security threats during the week-long event. The list runs from air pistols to water pistols and also includes items such as masks, plastic or metal pipe and string more than six inches long. Conspicuously absent from the list of potential weapons: Firearms. Nice to see that conservative America still has its priorities straight. (Via danjite.)
Social issues are not the Republican Party's problem - the gender gap is about healthcare, not sex - A British perspective, with a strong conservative bias.
Republicans are causing a moral crisis in America - It’s hard to point to a single priority of the Republican Party these days that isn’t steeped in moral failing while being dressed up in moral righteousness. [...] It is a very strange thing that the people who lecture most fervently about morality are those who are most willing to fight for policies that are so immoral. This is an emperor-has-no-clothes argument, one I've been making for years in vain given the conservative dominance of the "liberal" media and our political discourse.
Pink Slime Economics - [A] lasting budget deal can only work if both parties can be counted on to be both responsible and honest - and House Republicans have just demonstrated, as clearly as anyone could wish, that they are neither. This is news how?
Pressure grows for Rick Santorum to drop out as Obama surges in polls - Mitt Romney expected to win Tuesday primaries as GOP eager to end contest and shift campaign against the president. Amazingly enough, bugfuck conservative lunacy doesn't poll well with people who haven't already drunk the Kool-Aid. I know this will come as a shock to many Republican voters, but their worldview as expressed by Santorum is neither rational nor popular.
Obama Cautions Against ‘Judicial Activism’ On Health Care - “Ultimately I’m confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress,” Obama said at a Rose Garden press conference. “And I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. An unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident this court will recognize that and not take that step.” Silly president, assuming the remotest intellectual consistency or good faith from Republicans. It's only judicial activism when conservatives disagree with the outcome. Legislation from the bench is fine when it supports the conservative worldview.
?otd: Do you ever ever ever wanna be young again?
4/3/2012
Writing time yesterday: 4.25 hours (2.75 hours of reviewing existing draft of Their Currents Turn Awry, added 1,300 words; 1.5 hours of WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
Weight: 238.6
Currently reading: The Bone Doll's Twin by Lynn Flewelling
Why I hate the myth of the suffering artist - It is absurd and insulting to assume artists are assisted by despair or hunger in a way that, say, plumbers are not. (Via @ce_murphy.)
Copying Is Not Theft - Hmmm…
The Bacon Coffin - For when John Scalzi becomes a vampire. (Via my Dad.)
Boston University scientists discover evidence humans used fire 1 million years ago
We Can Survive Killer Asteroids - But It Won’t Be Easy - Duck! And cover!
Programmable 'smart sand' can assume any shape - If you don't think this is cool, you are dead to me.
Future telescope array drives development of exabyte processing
Flying car completes its first test flight, could be on sale by end of the year - 1970 called, they want their future back. Now, where's my jetpack?
Oil Scare Turns FedEx On To Energy Efficiency - Electric vehicles? Come on. Any Republican can tell you that's total Kenyan Muslim socialism. Even when one of American's leading companies is doing the investing.
Gay pride flag raised at a US base in Afghanistan - Go, go, go!
Charlie debunks 2012 nonsense - Why does this even need debunking? As profoundly counterfactual and willfully ignorant as evolution denial and climate change denial are, at least I can see where they're coming from in a cultural and political sense. But 2012 paranoia?
Wisconsin Planned Parenthood attacked with 'explosive device' - Remember kids, according to the Republican party, it's not terrorism if good conservative white people are doing the bombing and the killing.
Six dead in shooting at Oakland university; suspect arrested in Alameda - Thank god for the NRA and the GOP standing up for everyone's right to their defense of essential liberties.
A Return to... You Call This Sanity? - Scrivener's Error is interesting on ebooks and the politics of education. To start with, if you call anything that does not meet your preconceived notion from the hard Right "liberal" - including centrist positions a liberal might well call "conservative" - you're going to get a rather distorted picture. Then, too, exactly how does one judge the political orientation of introductory calculus-based physics? Is it a "liberal-oriented" course if it includes "modern physics"? How about if you offer a non-calculus-based alternative that mentions energy production as an example for study? Is a linguistics course that includes consideration of non-Western languages inherently "liberal", especially if it is not based on Latin and ancient Greek?
Permitted handguns will be allowed in RNC's 'clean zone' - oping to head off violent protesters during the Republican National Convention, Mayor Bob Buckhorn has proposed a litany of items that will be considered security threats during the week-long event. The list runs from air pistols to water pistols and also includes items such as masks, plastic or metal pipe and string more than six inches long. Conspicuously absent from the list of potential weapons: Firearms. Nice to see that conservative America still has its priorities straight. (Via danjite.)
Social issues are not the Republican Party's problem - the gender gap is about healthcare, not sex - A British perspective, with a strong conservative bias.
Republicans are causing a moral crisis in America - It’s hard to point to a single priority of the Republican Party these days that isn’t steeped in moral failing while being dressed up in moral righteousness. [...] It is a very strange thing that the people who lecture most fervently about morality are those who are most willing to fight for policies that are so immoral. This is an emperor-has-no-clothes argument, one I've been making for years in vain given the conservative dominance of the "liberal" media and our political discourse.
Pink Slime Economics - [A] lasting budget deal can only work if both parties can be counted on to be both responsible and honest - and House Republicans have just demonstrated, as clearly as anyone could wish, that they are neither. This is news how?
Pressure grows for Rick Santorum to drop out as Obama surges in polls - Mitt Romney expected to win Tuesday primaries as GOP eager to end contest and shift campaign against the president. Amazingly enough, bugfuck conservative lunacy doesn't poll well with people who haven't already drunk the Kool-Aid. I know this will come as a shock to many Republican voters, but their worldview as expressed by Santorum is neither rational nor popular.
Obama Cautions Against ‘Judicial Activism’ On Health Care - “Ultimately I’m confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress,” Obama said at a Rose Garden press conference. “And I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. An unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident this court will recognize that and not take that step.” Silly president, assuming the remotest intellectual consistency or good faith from Republicans. It's only judicial activism when conservatives disagree with the outcome. Legislation from the bench is fine when it supports the conservative worldview.
?otd: Do you ever ever ever wanna be young again?
4/3/2012
Writing time yesterday: 4.25 hours (2.75 hours of reviewing existing draft of Their Currents Turn Awry, added 1,300 words; 1.5 hours of WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
Weight: 238.6
Currently reading: The Bone Doll's Twin by Lynn Flewelling