Link round-up for 4 May 2014
Book scanners can make unfortunate errors. So can Google Translate.
Which animals kill the most humans?
Even a humble shower can tell you much about the owner of a house.
I guess I'm a history fan.
Obamacare's popularity is gradually improving as even conservatives benefit and the House Republicans' rigged "survey" is exposed; some Republican politicians are changing their tune.
Here's what Christian family values do.
PCTC has another view on the new FCC internet proposal.
Green Eagle spots a well-placed ad.
Rosa Rubicondior looks at how she and others overcame religion.
What's behind the weird "Webdriver" videos (found via Mendip)?
Why do Christians want atheists to lie and hide?
Righties desperately keep flogging the long-decomposed horse of Benghazi, with Fox News gamely helping out.
Even if Evangelical Christianity became gay-friendly, that wouldn't solve the problems it presents.
In an example of dehumanizing language, RedState uses the word "whelp" to refer to a lesbian having a baby -- see the comments too.
An outburst of racism among Boston sports fans gets comprehensively repudiated.
The Kentucky Derby is stained with animal cruelty.
Mississippi fundies claim that merchants' refusal to discriminate against gays is bullying them.
The militia antics in Nevada descend into full-blown terrorism; more on clashes between the groups from Ed Brayton and Crooks and Liars. Immonal Minority has a round-up.
A shockingly-large number of people sentenced to death are actually innocent.
To the bewilderment of supporters, Maggie Gallagher admits the gays have pretty much won (warning -- bizarre syntax). Looks like her proofreader quit too.
"Most obviously, people whose real goal is dismantling the social safety net have found promoting deficit panic an effective way to push their agenda."
Palin's "baptism" joke is alienating the last groups that still support her.
A Mormon survey on sexual orientation reveals arrogance (found via Republic of Gilead).
April was the best month for job growth in two years.
Christian anti-gay crusader Don Boys (ahem) thinks some Christians' tolerance of gays is a tragedy (found via Mock Paper Scissors).
Kansas's economy declines as the Brownback regime applies conservative economic "ideas".
When you call out racists on their racism, they tend to respond with one specific accusation.
If Santorum runs, here's what he'll run on (found via Republic of Gilead).
At last -- two major banks will soon face criminal charges.
Conservative bishops threaten to split the Church of England over gay issues (found via Republic of Gilead).
Neo-pagans may have played a role in Ukrainian resistance to the Soviets after World War II (found via Mendip).
That Poo2loo video I posted here is now up on Pharyngula, drawing some interesting comments.
No, China's economy is not almost as big as ours -- not even close. See also China's bizarre demographics.
Islamists of Boko Haram in Nigeria are selling hundreds of kidnapped girls into slavery and forced marriage.
Wind turbines actually kill relatively few birds.
Satellite pictures reveal traces of thousands of ancient settlements.
Dreams seem to be linked to sexuality, as Freud believed.
Our planet-hunting skills are improving dramatically.
posted by Infidel753 at 2:33 AM
5 Comments:
The link on the Kentucky Derby is heart-breaking.
Whatever happened to letting an non-medicated, non-enhanced, non-electrial-probed horse compete and win on its merits as an athlete?
Hmmmm. Could it be that old bug-a-boo that seems to be at the center of everything where competition is concerned?
M.O.N.E.Y.
PS. I was lucky to have gone to the races at Keeneland and Churchill Downs, where I bet on the winning horse. How did I pick the winner? I liked his name, "Gato del Sol."
The image about LGBTQ homeless youth was crushingly accurate. Homophobia fuels untold misery, including youth homelessness and all the horrors that come with it.
As for the Boko Haram abductions, Wil Gafney wrote a powerful commentary about the crisis at Religion Dispatches. Gafney observes that the abductions bear an uncanny resemblance to forced marriages sanctioned by the Bible, and that scripture can be evil and destructive.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/7842/rape_marriage_of_nigerian_girls_is__biblical_marriage_/
I had a feeling the animal responsible for the greatest number of human deaths each year would be something unexpected, like the mosquito (I'm guessing malaria is the reason it kills so many). Funny how the more obviously dangerous animals, such as sharks, kill so few by comparison. Unfortunately, it seems that every time a shark takes someone down here, there's a hysterical demand for every shark in the ocean to be butchered, regardless of how dangerous it is (or whether getting rid of these animals is such a good idea anyway).
While I can't say I've ever mourned the destruction of the Library of Alexandria (probably because I don't know enough about it), I remember once being very depressed over the fact that six of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World are no more. What I found particularly upsetting about the loss of some of them was the fact that they were believed to have been destroyed by conquering armies. It's sad how so much of historical significance has been lost over the millennia for such a stupid, pointless reason, in fact. (It reminds me of how someone I know once said that vandalism was a crime he could never understand, simply because it was so mindless.)
On a sillier note, as a Doctor Who fan, something else I get upset about is the loss of so many old episodes of that show, simply because, at the time it ordered their destruction, the BBC didn't think anyone would be interested in watching them decades later. If only VCRs had been around back then!
This is a great collection of articles. And I learned something! "Fluff your kitty" is a euphemism for female masturbation.
Ha! I copyeditted the ebook version of The Politics of Ecstasy based off an OCR version. It did some bizarre stuff, including changing whole sentences. In the case of Leary's writing, however, it didn't really hurt.
The Webdriver Torso thing fascinates me, but it seems very clear what's going on. If I had developed a program to automatically upload videos to YouTube, I would create a testing program to generate random videos, upload them, then play them back and correlate with the original. I'm sure that's all that is going on. But 77,000 11 second videos: that's way cool!
Too much good here. I'll have to come back. I need to get some work done!
Regarding the size of China's economy: according to Dean Baker, if you look at "purchasing power parity" GDP and include Hong Kong and Macao, China does indeed have a larger economy than the US. Of course, I don't see that it matters. What really matters is median incomes and on that scale, the US has been dropping for decades.
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