Link round-up for 18 September 2011

The English language is easy -- but which kind?

GSA teens in my home town get their message across with a little help from Lady Gaga.

Colerain is a winning school.

Ryanair advertises flights to Bavaria.

Watch those hyphens.

If you missed it last time around, check out the star battleship Astrology vs. Carl Sagan.

David Barton has identified the problem with Congress: demons.

Republicans pray to cleanse North America of the curses of the Indians.

Marijuana gains in popularity over more dangerous drugs.

Want to impress women? Be a killer and fumble your metaphors.

Serpent de-regulation probably won't do much for the economy.

What do you see in the glass?

Cartoons sum up fundamentalist hypocrisy.

Check out the wisdom of Pat Robertson (found via Kriss the Sexy Atheist).

If you like my link round-ups, Fair and Unbalanced has something similar.

A scientist looks at Bachmann's anti-vaccine blather.

Never forget who was most vile back in 2008.

Dan Savage has the Christian Right attitude on the HPV vaccine just right.

Michigan Republicans ban domestic-partner benefits.

PCTC dissects a weird conservative assessment of liberalism.

If you're a Christian and think you understand atheists, read this and this.

Will Bachmann respond to the mother of Justin Aaberg?

Perry doubles down on dumb; teabaggers like his science-bashing and the Republican party is shifting his way, but his hostility to Social Security isn't playing well with most voters. He's like Bush without the moderation. And why exactly did he mandate that HPV vaccine?

The NY-09 defeat was a price to be paid for being wrong on Israel.

Ohio fights back against Republican vote suppression.

An IMF study affirms that austerity policies make long-term unemployment worse. An earlier claim that 150 economists support austerity turns out to be bogus.

No, a slip of the tongue is not the same as being completely wrong about something.

Of all the 9-11 anniversary posts I saw this week, I think this one was the best.

Republicans who should know better hedge and fudge on science.

Fundamentalist nutters pray for dominion over America.

Obama's proposal for funding his jobs plan gets it right. The jobs plan now has its own website.

Jolly Roger has some reminders for liberals who lean toward Ron Paul (read this too).

Could Obamacare have saved a Paul staffer's life?

Like the Taliban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas, American Dominionists destroy artifacts representing other belief systems.

The right and left really are different (more here).

Oregon Republicans retreat from bigotry.

I'm undecided about the Keystone XL pipeline; Norbrook makes a case against some of the protests.

At Heathrow, technology makes long airport walks obsolete.

73% of those charged in the recent British riots have previous criminal records.

Here's another view of the Gypsy "slave camp" story from Britain.

Swedes: your country is about to send an atheist to his death.

Let's hope the left turn in Denmark's election yesterday is a sign of things to come across Europe. Interesting aside from the rabidly pro-EU Der Speigel: "Denmark has weathered the European debt crisis relatively well because it is not in the euro zone".

European leaders' efforts to save the euro descend into confusion.

Blonde Nonbeliever has a guest post from an Italian atheist.

Japan saves energy by dressing down.

Victorious Libyan rebels make a creepy discovery beneath Tripoli.

Qaddhafi loyalists make their last stand using human shields.

Bangladesh takes a drastic wrong turn on media freedom.

Just-found sketches by a British soldier illustrate conditions in a World War II Japanese prison camp (found via Mendip).

Terrorists are targeting nanotechnologists world-wide (found via Histories of Things to Come).

For decades, war propaganda has exploited sexuality (found via Mendip).

Be extra-skeptical if you see any of these "quackronyms".

Florida confronts an invasion of giant snails.

Richard Dawkins explains why science is better than myth.

Here's what the gap between two tectonic plates looks like.

New technology will make wind power much cheaper.

Emily Baldry, age 6, did a little digging.

Today we could easily create a chimpanzee-human hybrid, but we shouldn't.

Behold the vastness of the universe.

Randal Koene reviews progress toward mind uploading (found via Maria Konovalenko).