[links] Link salad knows the cider's laced with acid
Magazine Monday: Subterranean, Spring 2013 - Including a review of my Green novelette, "A Stranger Comes to Kalimpura". I liked this bit: Green’s voice is, as always, sharp and clear and pitiless. She is a haunting character.
Lois Tilton reviews "A Stranger Comes to Kalimpura" - She didn't like it quite so much.
Cancer Centers Racing to Map Patients’ Genes - Welcome to my life.
What's Tylenol Doing to Our Minds? - The same pathways that help with physical pain seem to moderate existential distress. Wow. (Via danjite.)
If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today - (Via @daviddlevine.)
Inside the Race to Build the World’s Fastest Bitcoin Miner - Stories like this are making me feel like a tech dinosaur.
Two-Track Mind - The MTA's "track geometry car" slides around through the New York City subway, using "a variety of sensors, measuring systems, and data management [software] to create a profile of the track being inspected." This is cool.
Microraptor: A 4-Winged, Fish-Eating Dinosaur
Fellowship of the Tree Rings - New Zealand researchers probe history and climate science by looking at wood. It's pretty amazing how liberals have planted evidence for climate change even deep inside ancient trees. Thank God we have Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party to keep us focused on the truth instead of that pesky old reality.
Exploring public concerns about geoengineering the climate - UK researchers talk about pumping reflective aerosols into the atmosphere. What could possibly go wrong?
Terrorism and the other Religions - It takes a peculiar sort of blindness to see Christians of European heritage as “nice” and Muslims and inherently violent, given the twentieth century death toll.
Actual 4th Grade science test in South Carolina - I hope to Ghu this is a spoof. Thanks to Poe's Law, it's impossible to separate conservative willful ignorance from parody of conservative willful ignorance. I simply do not understand how any parent would want to so dreadfully miseducate their child. (Via goulo.)
2nd Child of Pa. Couple Dies After Only Praying - Religion really can make you stupid. Fatally stupid. The deliberate miseducation and intellectual stunting so beloved of religious conservatives is bad enough. Those poor kids died of abuse and neglect privileged under the mantle of faith.
FMH Podcast Episode 52: Women That Leave Because of Gender Inequality - What I find fascinating about the blog Feminist Mormon Housewives is the intellectual train wreck always in progress there. Most of the post and comments on that blog are from intelligent, progressively-minded women who are struggling mightily to reconcile what their education and identities tell them with what their faith demands of them by way of subservience, submittal and acceptance of discrimination and flat counterfactuals. To my atheist outsider's view, almost all of them would a lot happier listening to themselves rather than their faith.
GOP Ex-Congressman Testifies About Struggle Getting Visa For His Gay Partner - Words fail me. You do remember you're a Republican, right? Further proof that no one likes conservative policies when applied to them personally.
Texas wants federal disaster aid it refused to give others - Ah, the justly famed intellectual consistency of conservatives is once more on display. Of course, these are Sarah Palin's "real Americans" in trouble, not undeserving East Coast liberals.
The Senate's gun control fail: dead children and monied politicians - A UK perspective. A sane man's contempt for the United States Senate must now be certain and complete. Given the inertia on even the most modest legislative response to the mass murder of schoolchildren, those still credulous enough to believe that our governance is representative of popular will are either Barnum-sized suckers, or worse, tacit participants in tragedies soon to come.
Jeff Flake’s Rhetorical Games On Background Checks Come Back To Haunt Him - Speaking of intellectual consistency. As ever, conservatives value their guns over your safety.
Arkansas county GOP is unhappy that we can't shoot politicians, as the Second Amendment intended - More of that measured reason we have all come to expect from conservatives in the gun culture. I sure feel safer knowing people like this are exercising their Second Amendment rights to theoretical defense of essential liberties.
WSJ Columnist Taranto Uses Gabby Giffords' Injuries To Silence Her On Gun Violence - Stay classy, conservative America. It's what you do best. (Honestly, if I were a Republican, I'd die of shame.)
'I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.' - This is how Republicans respect our democracy. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)
QotD?: What is the Holy Spirit crying?
4/23/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo day)
Hours slept: 8.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (very carefully on the stationary bike)
Weight: n/a (couldn't stand on scale due to injured foot)
Number of FEMA troops on my block faking evidence for climate change: 0
Currently reading: Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
Lois Tilton reviews "A Stranger Comes to Kalimpura" - She didn't like it quite so much.
Cancer Centers Racing to Map Patients’ Genes - Welcome to my life.
What's Tylenol Doing to Our Minds? - The same pathways that help with physical pain seem to moderate existential distress. Wow. (Via danjite.)
If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today - (Via @daviddlevine.)
Inside the Race to Build the World’s Fastest Bitcoin Miner - Stories like this are making me feel like a tech dinosaur.
Two-Track Mind - The MTA's "track geometry car" slides around through the New York City subway, using "a variety of sensors, measuring systems, and data management [software] to create a profile of the track being inspected." This is cool.
Microraptor: A 4-Winged, Fish-Eating Dinosaur
Fellowship of the Tree Rings - New Zealand researchers probe history and climate science by looking at wood. It's pretty amazing how liberals have planted evidence for climate change even deep inside ancient trees. Thank God we have Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party to keep us focused on the truth instead of that pesky old reality.
Exploring public concerns about geoengineering the climate - UK researchers talk about pumping reflective aerosols into the atmosphere. What could possibly go wrong?
Terrorism and the other Religions - It takes a peculiar sort of blindness to see Christians of European heritage as “nice” and Muslims and inherently violent, given the twentieth century death toll.
Actual 4th Grade science test in South Carolina - I hope to Ghu this is a spoof. Thanks to Poe's Law, it's impossible to separate conservative willful ignorance from parody of conservative willful ignorance. I simply do not understand how any parent would want to so dreadfully miseducate their child. (Via goulo.)
2nd Child of Pa. Couple Dies After Only Praying - Religion really can make you stupid. Fatally stupid. The deliberate miseducation and intellectual stunting so beloved of religious conservatives is bad enough. Those poor kids died of abuse and neglect privileged under the mantle of faith.
FMH Podcast Episode 52: Women That Leave Because of Gender Inequality - What I find fascinating about the blog Feminist Mormon Housewives is the intellectual train wreck always in progress there. Most of the post and comments on that blog are from intelligent, progressively-minded women who are struggling mightily to reconcile what their education and identities tell them with what their faith demands of them by way of subservience, submittal and acceptance of discrimination and flat counterfactuals. To my atheist outsider's view, almost all of them would a lot happier listening to themselves rather than their faith.
GOP Ex-Congressman Testifies About Struggle Getting Visa For His Gay Partner - Words fail me. You do remember you're a Republican, right? Further proof that no one likes conservative policies when applied to them personally.
Texas wants federal disaster aid it refused to give others - Ah, the justly famed intellectual consistency of conservatives is once more on display. Of course, these are Sarah Palin's "real Americans" in trouble, not undeserving East Coast liberals.
The Senate's gun control fail: dead children and monied politicians - A UK perspective. A sane man's contempt for the United States Senate must now be certain and complete. Given the inertia on even the most modest legislative response to the mass murder of schoolchildren, those still credulous enough to believe that our governance is representative of popular will are either Barnum-sized suckers, or worse, tacit participants in tragedies soon to come.
Jeff Flake’s Rhetorical Games On Background Checks Come Back To Haunt Him - Speaking of intellectual consistency. As ever, conservatives value their guns over your safety.
Arkansas county GOP is unhappy that we can't shoot politicians, as the Second Amendment intended - More of that measured reason we have all come to expect from conservatives in the gun culture. I sure feel safer knowing people like this are exercising their Second Amendment rights to theoretical defense of essential liberties.
WSJ Columnist Taranto Uses Gabby Giffords' Injuries To Silence Her On Gun Violence - Stay classy, conservative America. It's what you do best. (Honestly, if I were a Republican, I'd die of shame.)
'I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.' - This is how Republicans respect our democracy. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)
QotD?: What is the Holy Spirit crying?
4/23/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo day)
Hours slept: 8.0 hours (solid)
Body movement: 0.5 hours (very carefully on the stationary bike)
Weight: n/a (couldn't stand on scale due to injured foot)
Number of FEMA troops on my block faking evidence for climate change: 0
Currently reading: Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett