30 June 2019

Link round-up for 30 June 2019

Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week.

o o o o o

Recharge your phone with a hamster.

I suspect the rats are being framed.

Have a few fish cartoons.

See some honest corporate logos.

Kittens discover disco.

This restroom probably stays very clean.

Important warning for the buyer here.

At the movies -- don't do it!

The Tobe Zoo conducted a lion escape drill, complete with a fake lion.

Coming to a store near you:  evil robots.

Dutch engineering helps animals migrate.

Consider a moss lawn.

Debra She Who Seeks looks at Pride milestones in 2019.

Professor Chaos explores the mentality of anti-gay religious crazies.

Darwinfish 2 reviews wingnuttery in images.

I Should Be Laughing observes the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.

Arab rule in Sicily ended in 1091, but their cultural influence is still ubiquitous on the island.

The goal of trolls is to waste your time -- you're not obligated to play their games.

Trump babbles incoherently about the popular vote.

NewTumbl is another new alternative to Tumblr.

Optimism is the radical choice.

Maybe conservatives are just amateurs.

Cryptocurrencies continue to fascinate gullible wingnuts.

This is what happens when people try to legitimize Trump.

Never try to shame chronically-ill people for doing fun things.

There is a cure for fundamentalism, but it's difficult to administer.

New Orleans musician James Crawford deserves to be better known.

Wingnuts are flooding the worthless online post-debate polls -- you can safely ignore their "results".

The American Psychoanalytic Association apologizes for its former position that homosexuality was a disorder.

Political humorists provide analysis of Trump's near-attack on Iran (aren't the, you know, actual media supposed to be doing this?).

Bruce Gerencser describes how personal experience with gay people helped him overcome his Christian prejudice against them.

Manipulative advertising loses its effectiveness over time.

A Congressional Republican wants to cut off PBS's funding over that cartoon gay rat wedding thing.

The Trumpified Independence Day celebration in Washington is going to be a mess.

The opioid Reefer Madness hysteria continues to wreak havoc on patients.

That Supreme Court gerrymandering decision may eventually blow up in the Republicans' faces.

A lawsuit has put one of the worst Christianist laws on hold.

A fundie freaks out over the rise of secular "cockroaches" (she means people like me).  Another calls down the wrath of God upon Taylor Swift for her recent gay-positive music video.  But they do recognize one man Godly enough to deserve their all-out support.

Capitalism deploys weapons of math destruction against us.

Don't be fooled by apparent patterns that don't really exist.

The politicians writing these draconian abortion laws are grossly ignorant about biology.

Here's a good summary of the Oberlin College / Gibson Bakery case.

Christianity gives people empathy and morality.

The RNC has used fake census documents to gather data (the post is a year old, but they may well still be doing similar things).

History is beginning to repeat itself.

An Alabama woman whose fetus died after she was shot has been charged with manslaughter.

Bank of America shows its moral standards, and John Cornyn shows his.

Public support for discrimination on religious pretexts is growing -- and not only discrimination against gays.  It's still far from a majority position, though, and is driven mostly by Republicans and Evangelicals.

In Indiana, a judge delivers a win for abortion rights.

Here is Trump's America in savage imagery.  He is now threatening the families of US troops (found via Notes to Ponder).

Wayfair employees and government asylum officers protest the migrant camps.  Here are some of the dead; no doubt there are more, and will be even more to come.

With one exception, female Republican Senators are desperately trying to evade talking about the Carroll rape accusation.  That's going to get harder as corroborating witnesses have come forward.  The "family values" religio-nutballs remain as hypocritical as ever, while the media have dropped the ball on this story.

See a gripping graphic-format tale of Nazi rockets and the early days of space travel.

The "mass defect" is a weird irregularity in particle physics.

There's a new line of glasses designed to defeat CCTV cameras and facial-recognition software.

Moline Skeptics looks at some anti-vaccine quackery.

The WHO proposes a strategy against the spread of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Even when Trump is gone, the world won't just go back to the way it was.

The creator of a powerful anti-Trump cartoon just got dumped by one of his publishers.

A British writer explains why Trump is disliked in Britain.

The UK Labour party is failing to deal with its anti-Semitism problem.

This was the Pride rally in Helsinki, Finland yesterday.

Germany's "society is doomed to collapse" nutters had big plans.

Kiev this month hosted the largest Pride parade ever in the former Soviet bloc.  Joe.My.God has a couple of videos.  North Macedonia held its first parade ever.  The parade in São Paolo, Brazil drew three million people, perhaps partly in defiance against the country's reactionary new President.

A Catholic bishop wants to drench a whole city with holy water from a helicopter to fight demons.

Trump started the G-20 summit by bashing other major democracies again. He tried to get other countries to leave the Paris climate agreement, but failed.

Yazidi women once enslaved by Dâ'ish (ISIL) return to the city of Sinjar, finding it in ruins.

Iranians aren't much impressed by Trump's new sanctions.

What really happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 370?

New York state offers lessons in how to move politics to the left.

Beware of those who sow division among us and promote violence -- they may not be what they seem.

The debates have reshaped the Democratic race, with Biden down and Harris up (her support more than doubled).  This poll was released one day after the second debate, however, so don't take it as definitive.

No, do not take Marianne Williamson seriously.  One amateur President is (more than) enough.

Despite the recent rulings, we can still act to resist gerrymandering.

An internet-troll campaign to undermine Harris is already under way.  Good observation in this commentThe goal is the same as the earlier racial attacks on Obama.

Biden's record on busing, like that of America itself, is complicated.

Warren proposes a sweeping plan to guarantee voting rights nationwide -- an example of why we need the Senate as well as the Presidency, so such legislation can actually be passed.

Our candidates are taking climate change seriously.

Martin Longman believes Trump is doomed to lose next year unless a third candidate interferes -- or the Democrats really blow it.  A woman candidate might actually do better.

Let your outrage at the border migrant camps motivate you to vote the bastards out.

What happens if Trump loses but refuses to concede?

Shower Cap looks at normalization of atrocities and the latest in wingnut hypocrisy.

More links here.

[Image at top:  Cathedral of Palermo, Sicily]

13 Comments:

Anonymous NickM said...

Help me! You been busy! That's the rest of my weekend done for...

30 June, 2019 02:20  
Blogger Debra She Who Seeks said...

Those honest corporate logos are right on. And the broom packaging went above and beyond for honesty in advertising! Had a good laugh at "Wingnuttery in images."

Michael de Adder is a brilliant cartoonist and one of my faves. His "Trump playing through" cartoon shows why. I hope it wins the 2019 editorial cartoon of the year award! Shameful that his contract was terminated over it. I'm sure there will be a big outcry in New Brunswick and Canada because of it.

30 June, 2019 07:45  
Blogger Mary Kirkland said...

I had several hamsters and know that they will spend most of the night running in their wheels. So making that a phone charger is hilariously smart.

The rats I had would sit on hubby's shoulder when he had an alcoholic drink and try to get a sip so it doesn't surprise me that they would drink all that liquor up.

30 June, 2019 08:33  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Nick: Anything to keep people out of church on a Sunday.....

Debra: It's a brutally-honest cartoon and I can see why he's highly regarded. Hopefully James Irving will soon see he was a fool to dump de Adder just to pander to a toad whom most Canadians and the majority of Americans despise.

Mary: 900,000 liters of alcohol is about a thousand cubic yards. If rats really drank all that, there must have been drunk-out-of-their-minds rats stumbling all over the state of Bihar. Rat party of the century!

30 June, 2019 12:37  
Anonymous nonnie9999 said...

Hi Infidel,

Caturday Night Fever?

If the title is polite, you don't have to worry. For example, Please Don't Eat the Daisies. I guess it could be a horror movie if you eat too many of them, though, I suppose.

I live in a townhome. I told my friend yesterday that, if I had to mow the lawn, the front of my house would be covered with concrete. I do like that moss,though.

That was very interesting reading about Arab influence on Sicily. I had no idea (and now I'm hungry).

My answer to trolls who want "proof" is to tell them to do their own fucking research. Then I say that I will no longer interact with them, and if they want to answer, it's for nothing.

There were a lot of votes cast in 2016 that I don't believe, especially down here in Floriduhhh. The Russians already were piddling around in at least two counties. The felon Rick Scott did nothing about it, and the racist Ron De Santis certainly won't, so I have no idea if my vote was counted or if any future votes will.

Stephen Moore is one of the stupidest people to ever appear on TV, and I would trust him with a dime of my money like I would trust a hungry Hannibal Lecter with my life.

Know what the cure for fundamentalism is? A sit-com. If not for Will and Grace, I don't think we would have marriage equality today. If not for All in the Family, we still wouldn't be able to talk about racism today. If you want to normalize a culture, show a sit-com about it. It shows people who live in their bubbles that the people or ideas they are afraid of are not scary at all. You entertain them, and they don't even realize that they are actually learning something.

If Rethugs want to cut off funding for PBS because a gay rat getting married offends religous conservatives, I would like to demand that my tax dollars not go to Twitler's golf games or his 4th of July propaganda plans, because it offends me as a thinking person.

Time for dinner. I'll read the other links while I eat.

30 June, 2019 18:16  
Blogger jenny_o said...

It's my understanding that deAdder's freelance contract renewal - or lack thereof - had been decided before he did that cartoon; he had not even offered it to that publisher prior to losing the contract. In other words, that particular cartoon was not the reason he lost the contract renewal. In that sense the media has the wrong info, although the publisher also has U.S. business links and probably wouldn't like any Trump cartoons that might cause them to lose business.

30 June, 2019 23:10  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Nonnie: I'd never be able to take care of a lawn. I guess some people like it, though.

Sicily has had an incredible range of influences on its culture, due to its location. Even the Vikings were there at one point.

You're right about the sit-coms, and popular culture in general. I've posted about that several times. Over long periods, movies and TV have a strong influence on popular attitudes. The wingnuts certainly know that, judging by how much they complain about it.

Jenny_o: Can you link to any evidence supporting that? I know it's what the publisher is now claiming, but given the amount of negative publicity they're getting, you'd expect them to claim that. De Adder certainly believes they dumped him because of the cartoon.

01 July, 2019 09:07  
Blogger Adam said...

Honestly we should do what I call reverse-gerrymander. Make races as competitive as possible.

01 July, 2019 12:45  
Blogger jenny_o said...

Infidel: I only saw what the publisher claimed, as you stated. So it seems at this point it's a he-said-they-said situation, as deAdder could be expected to claim what he did just as the publisher could be expected to claim what it did. I have no trouble imagining that his contract wasn't renewed because of prior cartoons; I'm just saying that there may not be the direct link that the cartoonist claims between this particular cartoon and his contract failing to be renewed (which also is not precisely the same as being fired).

This may seem like splitting hairs, but I believe in being fair and balanced, and I'm not sure that most of the coverage of this falls into that category.

01 July, 2019 16:01  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Adam: There are ways of doing that -- have an independent group draw the lines, or even a computer program. Unfortunately the Supreme Court has given corrupt state governments a green light to keep on cheating the voters. Still, as the linked post says, eventually the shoe will be on the other foot and they may regret pushing for this.

Jenny_o: Fair enough.

01 July, 2019 17:19  
Blogger RO said...

It's always so wonderful to visit and experience the kindness of you sharing other blogs for us to visit, and I appreciate you so much! Hugs and Happy Tuesday! RO

02 July, 2019 01:11  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Thanks! I'm glad if my weekly wanderings around the net are proving of interest to others as well.

02 July, 2019 17:30  
Blogger jenny_o said...

Hi Infidel, just a follow-up to the cartoon controversy if you are interested:
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/cartoonist-behind-anti-trump-image-thinks-online-presence-played-role-in-contract-ending/ar-AADL1kj?li=AAggXBV&ocid=mailsignoutmd

I particularly appreciated the points made in the latter part of the article by Paul Knox, former Ryerson journalism prof, about the need for news media to provide balanced content and also the need for an agreement upfront between employer and employee in order to avoid later issues.

Personally I still feel the cartoon was brilliant.

03 July, 2019 09:13  

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