Odds and ends

NASA confirms that there is flowing liquid water on Mars, at least during the summer.  This seems strange given that the temperature is still below freezing, but the water is probably salty, which can lower the melting point.  This doesn't mean there's life on Mars, much less intelligent life -- but it has again confirmed the existence of stupid life on Earth.

By 60% to 32%, Americans believe that any budget deal must fully fund Planned Parenthood, and if there is a government shutdown, 40% will blame Republicans while only 26% will blame Democrats.  This was never a winning issue for the wingnuts -- most media reports I've seen on the videos that started this latest kerfluffle have mentioned the fact that they were deceptively edited to give the false impression that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue, so voters outside the right-wing bubble are well aware that this claim is a lie.

Among the Muslim migrants arriving in Germany, substantial numbers are abandoning Islam and converting to Christianity.  Likely their true motive is to improve their odds of winning permanent residency, since Islamic law (as actually applied by some Middle Eastern regimes such as ISIS) imposes the death penalty for any Muslim who renounces Islam, and a civilized country won't deport refugees back to where they might face such a fate.  But if people will convert from one religion to another out of expediency, they probably don’t have much of a fanatical commitment to either one. Once they’re settled in Germany they’ll easily be swept along in the general trend toward secularism among the general population in Europe which is making religion meaningless, regardless of which religion a person starts out with. They're not the kind of people Europe needs to worry about.  What Europe needs to worry about is slimebuckets like this guy who refuse to assimilate.  Like the fundies in the US, they are getting fewer but remain dangerous.