Link round-up for 13 January 2019

I think 2019 has already gone on for more than long enough, don't you?

o o o o o

This is your brain on Fox News.

New store opening soon (found via Mock Paper Scissors).

They are shocked, shocked, to find that swearing is going on here.

It's a perfectly innocent business name.

Cats, cats, cats!

Pointing this out is "naughty", apparently.

Here's a maze with a difference.

Hmmm.....

Trump will want a big beautiful plaque on his wall.  What should be engraved on it?

NASA isn't exactly trying to prevent sex in space, contrary to the item I linked a couple of weeks ago.

Life is amazing.

A new attack on Ocasio-Cortez gets debunked internet-style.

To hell with people's opinions.

Here are some nice sky photos.

Frankenstein's monster was rather different than the movies would have you believe.

Go to the library, you idiots.

Superheroines?  Here's the real thing.

There's some weird and disturbing stuff going on with YouTube ads.

It's just myths, and ugly myths at that.

Shakespeare was Shakespeare.

That "Trump wall" episode of Trackdown from 1958 may not have been coincidence.

Everybody has a right to their fantasies.

It's not much of an emergency.

This person exists.  And this person exists.  And even these people exist.

Why did no one write about Jesus and his miracles during his own time?

Bird Box annoys racists of all kinds.

Land of the slow, home of the oblivious.

Here's the reality behind "red tape".

Suffer the little children.

$5 billion is actually a lot of money.

Don't make masochism a philosophy.

Whatever Trump says or does, coal is over.

Oligarchy thrives on popular lies.

Unconditional pacifism benefits only the aggressor.

The Debate Link looks back on a few stories from 2018.

New year, same old political crap.

We've got a hostage situation here.

Right-wing alternate reality is merging into the general fog of conspiratardia like Satanic ritual abuse and shadowy global cabals.

Evangelicals object to an anti-lynching bill because.....well, just read this.

Electoral-Vote has an interesting discussion on General Ulysses Grant, and looks at Ruth Bader Ginsburg's health.

Some conservatives have a reason of their own for hoping Trump doesn't declare a state of emergency.

The "burnout generation" just wised up faster.  Here's the truth in a nutshell.

Amazon is trying to destroy competition.

Capitalism and medicine don't mix.  If you die as a result, there's this.

The shutdown is disrupting American science.  It's not good for food safety either (so take precautions).  Then there's the FBI.

Quitting alcohol for even one month can have lasting health benefits.

Don't fall for these pervasive myths about being fat.

As the anti-vax movement spreads, the toll in death and suffering is rising.

No, the Easter Island natives didn't destroy themselves by resource depletion (found via Jeff Baker).

Maybe English wasn't the best option.

If you're one of those Brexit-bashers, please familiarize yourself with the issue.

If your rhetoric encourages violence against political opponents, you have some culpability when people actually attack them.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is now independent of its Russian counterpart, much to the outrage of the latter.

The persecution of gays in Chechnya is getting worse.

Trump must be envious -- a place where reporters can be jailed for reporting on the corruption of politicians.

This man helped our troops -- Trump's America may send him to his death (found via Scottie).

In India, the rule of a religio-nationalist party encourages crackpot ideas at the expense of real science.  Thank goodness such a thing could never happen in the US.  The party is also trying to pass a citizenship law that discriminates by religion.

There's a cultural genocide going on that you rarely hear about.

Don't help the wingnuts destroy our candidates.  Every Republican in power is one too many.

If Trump ran for re-election today, he'd lose in a blow-out.  Here's a profile of one possible opponent, and a home-state appeal to another.

Go ahead, try to have a rational conversation with people like this.

I Should Be Laughing has some political quotes.

Trump's speech might have been meant as a distraction from bigger news.  If so, it didn't work very well.

She ain't no Mary Poppins.

Substance matters in politics, but so does image.

Shower Cap identifies the real national emergency and reviews the shutdown shitstorm.

[Image at top:  the Monastery of St. Michael in Kiev, Ukraine -- photo taken by me when I was there in 2007]