So far this year in the US there have been 15,897 gun deaths from shootings other than suicide. (More people than that have killed themselves via guns, the #1 use of a gun in the US is to kill yourself.)

1,435 of those non-suicide gun deaths were children.

There has been more than one mass shooting per day this year ( Read more... )

Back when sexual orientation was a bigger deal, before the US Supreme Court recognized the rights to same-sex sex and same-sex marriage, one of the bigoted claims against gays and lesbians was that we were trying to recruit children into our "diseased" lifestyle ( Read more... )

A work project on which I've spent a lot of time lately, including several evenings, has now been put on the back burner. I'd been expecting this downshift to occur by summer, though not quite yet. But so long as the project was up front, I was putting a lot of time into it, and enjoying doing so. Now I'll be able to ask for some new projects to ( Read more... )

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that his cabinet had voted to shut down the Israeli operations of Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based network that is one of the most widely viewed sources of television news in the Arab world.

I'm seeing this phrase pop up more and more in the news media I consume, as the nationwide campus protests of the Hamas/Israel war spread and continue. Columnists who claim sympathy with Palestinians nevertheless focus their criticisms on pro-Palestinian protesters, not on the genocidal overreaction of Israel, not on Biden's unconditional military ( Read more... )

Although a couple of personnel issues are on my mind -- I'm still Acting Supervisor for a while -- I slept normally ( Read more... )

Walked this morning, everything felt fine footwise, wished I'd gone running instead, but will do so tomorrow morning ( Read more... )

Last night I chose hot tub, even though I can hot tub while T is here, instead of either last-minute downstairs XBOX or toys. It's great weather for it. I love October! I listened to history podcast episodes about the Yalta summit in 1945 ( Read more... )

Today is the day the US celebrates its independence from the UK and its establishment as a constitutional republic. Fuck those British monarchs! Traditionally this celebration involves backyard cookouts and then fireworks after sunset. Somebody somewhere in the US will die from misusing fireworks ... be safe out there ( Read more... )

In the Supreme Court's latest clash between a Christian conservative web designer and her hypothetical future gay customers, the Supreme Court sided with the web designer based on her First Amendment right to free speech ( Read more... )