Link round-up for 20 October 2013

Here's a behind-the-scenes history of Monty Python's immortal dead parrot sketch (found via Mendip).

There's still 12 days to vote for the stupidest creationist tweet.

A top teabagger wants to file a class-action suit against homosexuality (found via "George Cucumber" here).

Can we please swap Texas for England?

A TSA agent looks for terrorists in the oddest places.

Really?  Every six and a half minutes???

This Halloween, go as something really scary (found via Squatlo Rant).  But know when the party's over.

Rove is getting just ridiculous.

What if there were a Republican airline?

Burglars with a cutting torch become victims of natural selection (found via Mendip).

Fresh from their crushing defeat, Republicans prepare for the next battle.  But debt-ceiling extortion probably won't work again.  Anyway, where do we go from here?

The crab-bucket syndrome afflicts universities too.

Erin Nanasi looks at the teabagger alternate-reality bubble.

The shutdown exacerbated the damage done by the sequester to American scientific research.

Salon's Eric Stern looks into some of those Obamacare horror stories the right wing has been pushing, and finds about what you'd expect.  Some reality here, here, and here.

Grimes has pulled a little ahead of McConnell in Kentucky.  He's got trouble from the right too.

Good question -- why was this funny?

His 15 minutes are almost up, but Ted Cruz manages one last faux pas.  Perhaps this captures him best.

A real witch goes to Salem.

Bernie Sanders is on the Senate budget committee.

The Christian Right is having a bit of a civil war of its own.

PM Carpenter reads Erick Erickson so you don't have to.  Oh, and hit his donation button if you can.

Republic of Gilead looks at fundie home-schoolers' Soviet-like views on art and culture.

PJ Vogt pushes back against censorship at Amazon.  And we need to be careful how we deal with revenge porn.

Business groups are out to destroy radical Republican candidates, while teabaggerdom is out to destroy moderates -- let's hope they both succeed. Remember, the nuts couldn't have done their damage without the moderates' collaboration.

Texas Republicans have found a way to suppress women's votes.

After Exodus International's back-down, a remnant of anti-gay hard-liners struggles to carry on (found via Republic of Gilead).

Christine Vyrnon looks at fundamentalists' unhealthy fixation on Israel.

In the depths of teabaggerdom, truth is whatever they want it to be.

Hillary Clinton has had an impact.

The threat of default and global economic collapse meshes well with the Christian Right's apocalyptic visions.  More on fundies and destructive politics here (found via Republic of Gilead).

Santorum fumes at intolerance of Christian intolerance.

Even the IMF now says countries should tax the rich more.

Here's a splendid rant from one of the world's first anti-smoking activists, King James I of England, in 1604.

Australia's Anglican Church condemns gay marriage (found via Republic of Gilead).  Oddly enough, their membership's in a slump.

Here's a Belgian version of that famous skirt-length poster, adapted for Islam (from bottom to top the words are "Sharî'ah-conforming, moderate Islam, provocative, slut, whore, rape, stoning").

Massive anti-austerity protests rock Portugal and Italy.

Ten years in prison for a miscarriage -- and it could happen here if the right wing gets its way.

The first round of new nuclear talks with Iran look promising.

The production of religious baubles begins with mass killing.

Somalis use hyenas to treat mental illness (I suppose we could try this on the teabaggers).

The Muslim Hajj is a nightmare of infectious disease.

Get plenty of sleep -- your brain is taking out the garbage.

Reproduction in space presents problems, at least for jellyfish.