Link round-up for 3 July 2011

Traffic at JFK airport pauses for wandering turtles.

Behold the awesome kudzu Jesus.

Video-game sound effects go Offenbach.

A fake Chinese propaganda photo inspires numerous spoofs (found via Mendip) -- someone should do the three officials all wearing the Princess Beatrice hat.

What if Jesus was a Republican?

End of civilization, blah blah blah.

Poznan, Poland, celebrates the summer solstice with floating lamps (found via Mendip).

It's "E. E. Cummings", not "e. e. cummings".

This brought back a few memories -- Wendy O. Williams.

18th-century astronomers believed the whole solar system was inhabited -- but it's their reasons for believing that that were really odd.

A cobra breeder (!) falls victim to his own serpents (found via Mendip) -- I wonder how the neighbors felt about his collection.

Before religion fades away entirely, it turns vacuous.

Here's one thing that has gotten worse since the 1860s.

Yet another study confirms that abstinence-only sex education doesn't work and is counterproductive.

New York's Gay Pride parade had plenty to celebrate this year.

Mac McClelland found a startling way to ease her post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Teach" and "Cheat" discuss plagiarism in the age of the internet.

Jack Jodell profiles Van Jones.

Religion is collapsing under its own bigotry and spite.

The New York marriage victory has really got the haters foaming at the mouth. Top Catholic clergy promise to ban politicians who voted for it from their rituals; NOM commits $2 million to oust seven of them from office; a debate erupts at NRO; Pat Robertson says God is in a snit (Atheist Camel response here); and this guy thinks God wants him to shoot people. Republic of Gilead and Truth Wins Out post round-ups. But Congressional Republicans are oddly quiet.

Other bloggers post on the New York victory: Ranch Chimp, Tim's Scared Stiff, Prash, Town Scryer, Exercise in Futility, and The Crossed Pond.

Give David Frum credit -- when he was wrong, he admits it. Ed Brayton has more.

After his effective gay-marriage push, Cuomo has higher approval from his state's voters than any other governor; Nate Silver looks at the possibility of a Presidential run.

Pamela Hart responds to clueless disparagement of young people's reasons for joining the military.

There's now a Twitter account for shaming bigots.

Atheists, like gays, need to push back against the hatred of the ignorant.

Isaiah Kalebu was just obeying God (sent by Ahab).

The case of Frances Herbert and Takako Ueda exemplifies the human cost of codifying bigotry into law.

September 11 helped galvanize atheist activism, but there's still work to do to build a real political force.

Clarence Thomas has a lot of ethics issues (hey, rightists attacked Vaughn Walker's right to rule on Prop. 8 because he's gay, so.....).

NBC restores the Pledge of Allegiance to its original form, and Tony Perkins freaks out.

Productivity has grown over the last 30 years, but those who do the producing aren't reaping the benefits.

There is a way to get Republican legislators to vote against free- trade deals.

Here's how to prevent your child from growing up atheist.

Sarah Jones interviews Vyckie Garrison, an escapee from the Quiverfull cult.

The ground zero mosque project is getting nowhere -- no money.

There's not much substance to media hysterics about mass sex slavery (found via Feminisnt).

Matt Taibbi profiles Bachmann, our would-be jihadist President. Hysterical Raisins takes a look at her and her husband. She's made far more damning "misstatements" than the John Wayne flub, but she could still win the Republican nomination.

Republicans have been wrong before about tax hikes harming the economy (found via Hello Mr. President).

In another shift on the right, National Review endorses a federal hands-off policy on marijuana.

Pawlenty's fund-raising isn't going so well.

Democrats can win big in 2012 by holding fast on Social Security and Medicare.

Fake tweets? How petty can the Republicans get?

Ohio activists needed 231,000 signatures to force a referendum against Kasich's union-busting legislation. They got 1,298,301.

Nutters flunk out among those who know them best. Per current polls, if Palin is the Republican Presidential nominee, Obama will carry Alaska; if it's Perry, Obama could carry Texas.

Here are two simple political facts the Democrats should have proclaimed from the start.

81 big companies lobby against rules forcing them to reveal how much their CEOs make relative to their workers. It's almost as if the info would be embarrassing or something.

A Fourteenth Amendment solution to the debt ceiling hostage crisis? The White House may be preparing for it. Meanwhile, Ron Paul (yes, Ron Paul) has an idea worth a look.

The EU forces austerity on others, not on itself.

The British general strike drew 750,000 participants.

Greece, trapped by the euro, can't avoid eventual default, and the big players know it.

The break-up of the euro currency zone could mean economic and political revival for Europe.

China's growth statistics are impressivbe, but we can't know how accurate they are.

Germany isn't directly involved in the Libyan campaign, but it's helping in other ways.

This week's protest in Hama, Syria, was the biggest so far in the uprising in that country.

Libyan rebels have secured much of western Libya and now stand just 50 miles from Tripoli.

Not just particle physics -- Cern sheds light on the origin of life.

Social conformity can affect memory.

What would you choose as the next step in human development?