Link round-up for 19 February 2012

Enjoy the scenery.

At any party, there's one person who loses something and ends up looking all over the place for it.

Please stop mispronouncing these.

Murr Brewster looks at the dung beetle and the role of genetics in her Scandinavian ancestry.

With some people, there's no point in discussion.

Mario Piperni posts the latest late-night political one-liners.

What is a parasite?

Methinks the game is rigged!

An Oklahoma Democrat fights Republican idiocy in the spirit of Monty Python.

The Onion looks at efforts to save an endangered species.

An ancient and simple tool liberates the imagination.

Pills banned? Give the Sarah Palin birth-control method a try.

A "sovereign citizen" crank declares war on grammar.

"Dogs against Romney"? Unleash the hounds! Protest photos here.

This week has been a Republican festival of sexist cluelessness. Progressive Eruptions looks at the latest outrages against women. Santorum's woman problem goes beyond birth control.

Charles Johnson has another round-up of comments posted at Fox, this time targeting Michelle Obama -- be warned, they're just as bad as the Whitney Houston comments I linked to on Monday.

Here's how Santorum really thinks -- remember, this guy wants to be President.

The Catholic hierarchy has jumped the shark these days (found via Progressive Eruptions).

Republicans' cave on the payroll tax shows that Democrats have learned how to fight them.

Dead people on the voter rolls aren't such a big deal.

Could Santorum really win the nomination? Rasmussen says yes. Possible campaign posters here and here; more here.

Here's more on that study linking prejudice to low intelligence.

Dave Dubya looks at the CPAC hate-fest (found via Progressive Eruptions).

Jack Jodell has ten questions for conservatives.

Republicans' weird use of language is rooted in their dishonesty with their own supporters.

No, this is not class warfare (found via Politics Plus).

That Suffolk poll showing Brown ahead of Warren is probably just an outlier.

One bishop says the birth-control coverage mandate is of the Devil.

Why did Santorum lose his 2006 Senate race so badly?

Don't get complacent, but we are winning the culture wars (found via Republic of Gilead).

Hey, let's not make a big deal out of a paltry few dozen murders.

In this case, a white man was a victim of police racism.

If corporate profits were the key to job creation, well.....

A leak exposes the inner workings of the libertarian war against science funded by, among others, the Koch brothers. More here.

Limbaugh vacations at Puerto Plata, a town with a reputation.

What does it mean to be "raped too much"? Is there a right amount?

The pain of death exposes the stupidity of religion.

As Republican hopefuls battle in Michigan, the real winner is Obama.

Interracial marriage continues to rise in the US, ushering us toward a truly post-racial future.

The financial parasite class no longer has its fangs quite so deep in our throats.

Would President Romney be Boehner's puppet?

Britain's Conservative leader supports Sarkozy, but only up to a point.

Andrew Sullivan, visiting Britain, starts to see the dangers of austerity.

The Muslim co-chair of the British Conservative party calls for Islam and Christianity to unite against secularism. Even in Britain, religion has a bullying attitude.

German socialist leader Sigmar Gabriel, who will become the most powerful man in western Europe after Merkel loses the 2013 election, denounces austerity as madness. Rather than brutalizing Greece, Germany should look to its own history. Escape could come via a return to the drachma.

Muslim terrorists are identified in Thailand -- by prostitutes they partied with.

British scientists re-create music silenced for 165 million years.

It's startling to realize how much we're surrounded by skeuomorphs.

At a conference in the northwest, creationist nutters fall flat again.

Was Stonehenge an instrument of musical magic? (found via Mendip).

Doctors in Los Angeles have successfully used stem cells to repair heart-attack damage in a human patient.