Link round-up for 2 April 2011

Cyc fisks a Mormon guide to avoiding masturbation (I thought at first the original must be a hoax, but it seems too laborious for that). More here.

You may get sugar shock just looking at these cereal boxes. Found via Mendip, who notes: "the definition of cereal has expanded to include what I'd describe as nothing more than cheap candy."

Why the hell would anyone place a pen like this?

Check out the art of Milek Jakubiec.

What happens to your Facebook page if you die?

Never mind religion or politics -- Christopher Hitchens has stern advice on the most important subject of all.

Youth pastor Brent Girouex says he had sex with boys to cure them of being gay (yeah, right).

Production of Boeing's Dreamliner is awash in problems, traceable to too much outsourcing.

Never mind Saudi Arabia, could a revolution happen in the United States? Paul Farrell makes the case (found via Plutocrap).

For telling the truth, you get accused of class warfare.

A teabagger anti-spending rally in Washington draws meager turn- out, again showing the contrast with massive attendance at our side's rallies in Wisconsin. But Bachmann was there.

Top Republican Presidential hopefuls have slipped in popularity. Joe Klein checks out the field.

Jeb Golinkin thinks that if Republicans stage another government shut-down, Democrats will win the battle of perceptions.

This sounds like an open-and-shut workplace-discrimination case.

A gay person has to be a bit crazy to support the Republicans these days, so maybe this isn't surprising.

Here's another example of the amazing fundamentalist tendency to demonize people (found via Republic of Gilead).

Obama is getting things done for gay people.

It's religionists who demand special treatment -- exemption from the laws that apply to everyone else. More here.

Another bubble bursts -- law schools.

Catholic bishops fight for the right to discriminate (found via Republic of Gilead).

Joseph Cannon has observations on the paranoid conspiracy-theorist mentality.

The cause of animal rights is not helped by terrorism.

The economy? What's that? Republicans focus on reviving DADT even after most Americans have turned against it. Here's more on how they're pushing creationism in state after state. And they're willing to support school funding -- as long as it's unconstitutional.

The problem with global-warming-denialist delusions is that they will harm even people who aren't afflicted with them.

The Left Behind books celebrate genocide (found via Republic of Gilead).

This new cell-phone app is meant for the Middle East, but could be useful in the US as well (found via Politics Plus).

How much does your cell-phone company know about you?

Germany's abstention on the UN Security Council resolution on Libya signals a possibly dangerous change of course in its foreign policy. More here and here.

This comment on last weekend's London demonstration should be taken to heart by the media.

The Irish village of Moneygall prepares for a visit from a promi- nent American whose roots lie there -- President Obama.

New EU plans to save the euro would require more centralization of power than European governments will tolerate -- and they still wouldn't work.

The EU puts forth yet another stupid idea which would, if it were ever implemented, economically devastate European inner cities.

Who ya gonna call? In Britain, not the police.

India apparently still doesn't have real religious freedom.

Rebelling Arabs want the same thing we do -- popular sovereignty.

In Tripoli, a bloody battle erupts around homes of high officials, while some in Britain contemplate escalation to remove Qaddhafi.

In Syria, the regime seems headed down a Qaddhafi-like path, with bloody crack-downs and accusations of foreign plots.

Iman al-Obeidi, the woman who defied Qaddhafi's regime to tell Western reporters about her gang-rape by his thugs, has been arrested; a petition to free her is here (original story here).

Global warming will shift vegetation and disease zones world-wide over the next century. Bird migrations are already being affected. Colder weather in the north-eastern US is among the predicted effects.

Conservationists speak out against the abduction and smuggling of baby chimpanzees and gorillas.

The black dragonfish spies out its prey with stealth vision (and, I might add, has a very scary-looking mouth).

Tyrannosaurus Rex had a Chinese cousin.

Religion will make you fat (found via Republic of Gilead).

Diabetics age faster, so stop being fat.

Scientists in Massachusetts develop an ultra-sensitive blood test for cancer and HIV.