Link round-up for 22 September 2019

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

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Have some bird cartoons.

Go to Hell!  But where, exactly?

Jenny_o indulges in animal puns.

What a "load" of bull (found via Miss Cellania).

Send this fox to the nearest Trump golf course.

Here are some larger-size Halloween decorations.

Notes to Ponder looks at Vancouver street names.

At Dr. Theda's Crypt, it's looking like Halloween already.  And at this blog, it's always Halloween.

This is the Oregon coast (click image for full-size).

An abandoned bowling alley becomes a palace of weird art.

"Excommunicate!  Excommunicate!"

Don't be Renny.

How many of these bureaucratic personality types have you encountered?

I won a football game, therefore God exists.

Yes, it does matter who started it.

Think your neighbors are a pain in the ass?

A woman who has sex with ghosts plans to marry one.  Maybe she can get wedding decorations at this store.

"Keep every stone they throw at you."

Here are some alternate uses for common products (it's amazing how many nasty things baking soda can get rid of -- we should try it on Trump).

See the original ending of 1986's Little Shop of Horrors, completely different from the theatrical version's ending (found via Miss Cellania).

And when you gaze long into the Google, the Google also gazes into you.

AO3 can protect your pictures as well as text works.

View a short film with some good scary dinosaur action.

Here are some things that foreigners find distinctive about Americans.

A posthumous post lists some of Harry Hamid's heroes.

Professor Taboo exhumes a truly creepy poem in advance of Halloween.

WTF?  $1,200 for a keyboard?

Here are all the Dracula movies, ranked worst to best (found via Mendip).

English is a pretty weird language (this is by John McWhorter, so you can trust it to be accurate).

Women's experience of life makes them more, not less, qualified for political leadership.

Part of the reason many atheists stay "closeted" is that we're tired of having the same wearisome arguments with Christians over and over.

You can't fret about, or even know about, every problem that's out there.

When is a cracker not a cracker?  To some, it's a deadly-serious question.

This could be part of the reason why Europe's population declined during the Dark Ages.

The United Methodist Church is splitting apart over the issue of homosexuality.

Forced displays of patriotism have no place in a democracy.

This monument looks barely begun after 71 years of work -- and the man it honors probably wouldn't have approved of it anyway.

The Christian Right is helping to drive liberals and moderates away from religion.

These history facts will surprise some (I knew a lot of them).

The Evangelical view of the "goodness of God" is incoherent.  And if he's so powerful, why does he need helpers?

A wingnut legal scholar is proposing a new line of attack against gay marriage.

The Salvation Army uses a science fair, of all things, to push creationist bullshit on kids.

A pastor reviews the Netflix series "The Family".

The Trump gang is planning to attack food stamps.

The Clergy Project, which helps clergy who no longer believe to leave their churches, will soon pass 1,000 members.

Third-party payroll-processing companies can't always be trusted.

A Catholic school fired a teacher for being single and pregnant.  Because Christianity is all about shunning and condemning people.

Violence against abortion clinics is at record levels and getting worse.

You've been propagandized.

A bishop warns his seminarians -- anyone who helps expose corruption will be kicked out.

Darwinfish 2 makes some points on gun control.

A gay man's autobiographical presentation in Ohio brings fundie hate out of the woodwork.

The New York Times is in the tank for the right wing.

The New York Times is in the tank for the left wing.

Active-shooter drills do more harm than good.

One cop framed at least 119 people.

This took guts.

A prominent theologian widely lauded by Evangelicals is openly white-supremacist and has defended slavery.

Colt's decision to suspend civilian sales of the AR-15 probably won't have much effect.

A Baptist preacher yearns for the good old days.

Learn the fascinating properties of red mercury.

Maybe we have too many honeybees.

An Evangelical climate scientist struggles to get other Evangelicals to take global warming seriously.

The climate strike drew huge crowds globally.  Here's part of the rally in Sydney, Australia, estimated at 80,000 (found via Hackwhackers).

How much do Europeans trust the police?

Christian missionaries in Australia are destroying Aborigine cultural artifacts which they consider Satanic.

Despite the narrative being pushed on us that he's floundering, Boris Johnson has gained in popularity since becoming Prime Minister, and is far more popular than opposition-party leader Jeremy Corbyn (the real nearest British equivalent to Trump).

Quite a few Republican Senators don't want war with Iran, at least not yet.

Russian engineering is crap, mostly due to the corruption inevitable under a dictatorship.  Let's hope their new floating nuclear reactor isn't dangerous.

India's religio-nationalist government is building mass detention camps for Muslims it suspects may not be legal citizens.

Minority women are being forcibly sterilized in prison camps.

Here are the issues Democratic voters care about -- note how one issue looms far larger than all others.

There will be disinformation campaigns.  But they are not magic.  They can be defeated.  And they are not grounds for wallowing in despair.

A South Carolina Democrat reports from a Buttigieg town hall meeting.

The Electoral College threatens to bring chaos to American democracy.

Warren plays it smart, avoiding attacks on rival Democrats.

The voters still strongly oppose impeachment, and it's unlikely that there will ever be a majority in the House for it.

Yastreblyansky argues that impeachment could help defeat Trump if it's timed to play out during the height of next year's campaign.

Biden's agenda is far more liberal than you think.

The Women's March is getting serious about purging the bigots from its leadership.

If Democrats commit to abolishing private health insurance, it's going to be a problem.

Marianne Williamson's mystical woo-woo candidacy is proving as insubstantial as "spiritual" things generally.

Did Biden act unethically with regard to Ukraine when he was VP?  This detailed analysis says no.

Don't let the wingnuts manipulate us.

Migration from blue states is bringing red and purple states within reach of the Democrats.

More links here.

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