Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad has been hauled away by Mr. Peabody’s coal train

More Bad Book Covers — A blogger takes umbrage with book covers on one my Tor books, and one of Seanan McGuire’s books.

Fine-tuning Nanotech to Target Cancer — Programmable nanoparticles have shown promise in early cancer trials, and may finally fulfill the promise of nanomedicine.

Freezing Time — Targeting the briefest moment in chemistry may lead to an exceptionally strong new class of drugs. Wow, does that headline sound like a story title.

Oldest human blood cells found in well-preserved ‘iceman,’ say scientists — Oldest human blood cells: Discovered in 1991, the body of a man who was felled by an arrow in the Alps some 5,300 years ago still has intact red blood cells, scientists have discovered.

10 strange fast food items abroad — Strange from a USAnian perspective, of course.

Finally, a Shark With a Laser — Because sometimes life just has to imitate art.

1859′s “Great Auroral Storm”—the week the Sun touched the earth

A Mélange of Ice — What a beautiful photo.

Student left in cell 4 days recalls hallucinations — The War on Drugs, keeping you safer since, well, never.

The Self-Made Myth: Debunking Conservatives’ Favorite — And Most Dangerous — Fiction

Wife Of NC Amendment One Supporter: Husband Wrote Bill To Preserve ‘Caucasian Race’ — Ah, conservatives. Your racism and homophobia are just part of what makes us all love you so much. There is simply no liberal equivalent to this kind of institutionalized Republican lunacy, not outside the far fringes of the progressive movement.

Chris Christie’s Liabilities as GOP Running Mate — Heh.

‘Hyperpartisan discussion’ ends gay spokesman’s stint with Romney — I continue to be fascinated by this story, mostly in wondering about the psychological train wreck that is any gay American working for the Republican party as it is constituted today.

?otd: Daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County, down by the Green River where Paradise lay?

5/3/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (2,600 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 8.0 (fitful)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Blade Itself Joe Abercrombie

Tags: Art, Books, Cancer, Cool, Food, gay, health, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, race, Science, weird

Posted: 4:37 am Thu May 03 2012 | Comments(4) |

[links] Link salad questions the universe

Olympics 2012: A Bruce Schneier Moment — Charlie Stross on the deepening weirdness of security theater.

Pat Robertson explains which parts of science you’re allowed to believe — Simultaneously appalling and hilarious takedown of Pat Robertson and Christianism in general.

Dan Savage Points Out the Hypocrisy in the Bible… So Young Journalists Walk Out on Him — But but but… Teh Gay is wrong!

Breaking the chains of religious tradition — Where I come from, girls are married off as teenagers to men they barely know and are expected to spend their lives caring for their husband and children. They are required to cover their hair and nearly every inch of their skin, and to remain behind a curtain at parties and religious events. Where I come from, if a woman wants to feel her hair blow in the wind or wear jeans or attend college, the courts have the authority to take her children away from her. Where I come from, you might be surprised to learn, is the United States. Specifically, New York and then New Jersey, in the Orthodox Jewish community.

Why I am an atheist – Libby Anne — From Pharyngula‘s ongoing series of guest posts. This one really struck me as interesting, as it’s almost the prototypical reason why conservatives and especially Christianists work so hard to miseducate their children and stunt their intellectual growth. Which I suppose would be fine if my friends on the Right kept that evil shit to themselves, but unfortunately they’re working just as hard to miseducate and stunt everyone else’s children as well, which makes opposing all that a political issue for everyone that cares about America’s future.

Romney’s Disconnect With Average Americans — Ya think? Nicely sourced piece, which no one on the Right will ever read. This is as silly as John McCain calling Obama an elitist. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

?otd: What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

4/30/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours
Body movement: airport walking to come
Hours slept: 5.75 (solid)
Weight: 240.0 (!)
Currently reading: Between books

Tags: Christianists, Links, Personal, Politics, Religion, weird

Posted: 3:30 am Mon April 30 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad celebrates the birth of a tumor

The New World of Publishing: Respect — Dean Wesley Smith on much-needed changes to trade novel publishing contracts.

Is Google Drive worse for privacy than iCloud, Skydrive, and Dropbox? — Another analysis that finds a more balanced outcome. (Via goulo.)

New York faced with swarms of bees which feed off human SWEAT — It’s the bee zombie apocalypse!

An astrological rarity: Venus moving across the sun in May — An offensively stupid headline in WaPo to describe an interesting astronomical event.

Rubber Chicken in Space — This photo is hilarious.

The Trust Molecule — Why are some of us caring and some of us cruel, some generous and some greedy? Paul J. Zakon the new science of morality— and how it could be used to create a more virtuous society.

What the Secret Service could learn from drunken sailors

“America Does not Go Abroad in Search of Monsters to Destroy” – John Quincy Adams — Old John Quincy Adams ain’t careful, he’ll find himself drummed out of the Tea Party for not following the wisdom of the Founders. No, wait… Help me, Rush Limbaugh!

What’s wrong with American politics

Behind the Right’s Phony War on the Nonexistent Religion of Secularism — Because in conservative America, the lies drive fund raising and votes much better than the truth ever does. My ongoing offense at this arises from the intersection of allegedly high-minded moralism on the Right and the flat-out, knowing false witness borne by these high-minded moralists on the Right. Christian conservatives cynically threw out their own Ninth Commandment decades ago in pursuit of political gain, all the time declaring that atheists like me are immoral. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Surrendering On Marriage — A truly conservative party would be pushing marriage equality, as the Tories are in Britain. What the GOP is, in stark contrast, is not a conservative party governing a modern society. It’s a radical fundamentalist and anti-government religious movement, dedicated to a core rejection of almost everything modernity brings but money.

Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem. — We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party. The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. So glad you finally noticed.

Mitt Romney stays put — He hopes to win the White House by doubling down on small-government conservatism. Yeah, that worked out so well for the country under Dubya.

Ready for the Fight: Rolling Stone Interview with Barack Obama — The president, in the Oval Office, discusses his job, the opposition and the coming campaign.

?otd: What do you celebrate?

4/29/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bicycle ride
Hours slept: 8.75 (solid)
Weight: 241.4 (!)
Currently reading: A Game of Thrones (graphic novel), George R.R. Martin with Daniel Abraham and Tommy Patterson

Tags: Christianists, gay, Links, media, nature, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 6:54 am Sun April 29 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad knows your history

Jay Lake. The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future — Best SF with a review of my recent Sunspin novella at Subterranean Online.

Talking pineapple question on state exam stumps … everyone! — And more on this. Plus a hilarious response from author Daniel Pinkwater, who wrote the original source material from which the test was extracted. Weird stuff. (Via corwynofamber.)

Rhetological Fallacies — Errors and manipulations of rhetoric and logical thinking. Oddly, the second chart I saw yesterday illustrating this point. (Via tillyjane.)

Sticking hand into bee colony and moving them — A nifty video. (Via willyumtx.)

Quantum decision affects results of measurements taken earlier in time

‘History of Space Photography’ is out of this world

Rosetta Approaches Asteroid Lutitea — What would it look like to approach an asteroid in a spaceship? Though I also love this comment: Lutetian is currently the largest asteroid or comet nucleus that has been visited by a human-launched spacecraft. Since when have we needed to qualify the noun “spacecraft” with the adjective “human-launched”?

Private company does indeed plan to mine asteroids… and I think they can do it — Bad Astronomer Phil Plait on some very cool stuff.

Primate Change — Hahahaha.

Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012 — In memoriam: After years of health problems, Facts has finally died.

Legal Theory Lexicon: Persons and Personhood — In case you were wondering. (Via Scrivener’s Error.)

The day-to-day reality of enforcing immigration laws

Shift on Executive Power Lets Obama Bypass Rivals — Strangely enough, this story in Your Liberal Media makes it sound as if Obama had come up with this all on his own, for his own reasons, without ever actually mentioning deliberate Republican obstructionism or the GOP’s stated highest legislative priority of making Obama a one-term president. Nope, he’s just a power mad liberal, apparently.

The Amnesia Candidate — Mr. Romney wants you to attribute all of the shortfalls in economic policy since 2009 (and some that happened in 2008) to the man in the White House, and forget both the role of Republican-controlled state governments and the fact that Mr. Obama has faced scorched-earth political opposition since his first day in office. Basically, the G.O.P. has blocked the administration’s efforts to the maximum extent possible, then turned around and blamed the administration for not doing enough. But, but, Tea Party!

Jon Huntsman and the Grand Old Communist Party — Hahahah.

Rubio: George W. Bush Was a “Fantastic” President — By what conceivable standard? National security? 9-11 happened on his watch, and we were drawn into the Iraq war on blatantly false pretenses. Domestic security? The response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans should have been the scandal of the decade. The economy? That’s a farce that goes without saying. The Bush administration was one of the most colossal political failures since at least Herbert Hoover, proudly following conservative philosophies while driving this nation as deep into the ditch as we’ve been since the Great Depression. And Republicans think it was a success? Unfortunately for reality-based Americans, we really do get the government that we deserve.

RNC spokesman says Republicans will follow Bush economic policies, ‘just updated’ — Yeah, because that worked out so well during the Bush administration. I realize that all likely GOP voters blame Obama for everything that’s happened to the economy over the last twelve years, but here in reality land, some of us remember what the state of the economy, the Federal budget, and the deficit were when Bush took office, and what state they were in when he left.

?otd: Where were you born?

4/24/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (3,000 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (solid)
Weight: 240.2 (!)
Currently reading: Between books

Tags: climate, Cool, Culture, education, Funny, Links, nature, Personal, Photos, Politics, reviews, Science, stories, Sunspin, Videos, weird

Posted: 5:35 am Tue April 24 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad wanders into Monday

John Cleese on Creativity — (Thanks to danjite.)

Post-Prozac Nation — The Science and History of Treating Depression.

Why North Korean ‘racist dwarfs’ really are three inches shorter than their cousins in South Korea — Headline from the Daily Mail.

Quantum Rainbow Photon Gun Unveiled — :: wamts ::

How science failed during the Gulf oil disaster

Wal-Mart probe could cost some executives their jobs — Now, if they were Wall Street execs, these guys would just get bigger bonuses.

Former presidential hopeful John Edwards faces trial — And he was supposed to be one of the good guys. Of course, if he’d been a Republican, this never would have gone to trial. See Vitter, Craig, etc. for what happens to GOPers with sex scandals.

Mitt Romney’s secrets — Mitt Romney’s contemptuous attitude toward the importance of public disclosure is increasingly troubling. Whether it involves the details of his personal finances or the identity of his big fundraisers, the presumptive Republican is setting a new, low bar for transparency.

?otd: Huh? What happened?

4/23/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (2,800 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
Weight: 241.4 (!)
Currently reading: Somewhere Else by Sally McLennan

Tags: Cool, Culture, healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, sex, weird

Posted: 5:23 am Mon April 23 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad likes both kinds of music

Endurance by Jay Lake — A review of my most recent Green novel from a feminist perspective. As it happens, this comes fairly close to my own view of the book.

Ancient language controls crime rings — Some gang members serving prison sentences are using an ancient language to try to keep control of their criminal organizations on the outside as corrections officers work fast to crack the code. (Via @lilithsaintcrow.)

Pop Culture’s 40-Year Itch

Europe as seen by… — (Snurched from Andrew Wheeler.)

Can You Make Yourself Smarter? — Maybe.

It gets to me, sometimes — Anonymous Doc on the endless round of struggle and pain he sees in the hospital. This line caught at me: That there are lots of people out there living their lives and enjoying them, and not waiting for the next shoe to drop. People who aren’t professional patients. People who aren’t just biding their time until their diagnoses come to get them. I’ve been a professional patient these last four years, especially these past three, and even now am biding my time until my diagnosis comes to get me. I’ve seen this bitterly from the other side.

Silent Hives — Colony collapse disorder and pesticides, fifty years after Silent Spring.

Global Warming & Climate Change Myths — Denialism, whether of global warming or evolution or just reality in general, is like criminal defense. The denialist pecks away at the evidence in individual chunks, never responsible for providing a coherent framework to explain the aggregate hypothesis. Each point the denialist attempts to make is under no obligation to interact sensibly with any other point. So large, well supported bodies of evidence can be safely ignored by otherwise intelligent people blinded by ideology or faith, who are being manipulated by cynical opportunists. Sort of like the OJ trial. (Snurched from Slacktivist.)

Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle — …a prolonged struggle at the highest levels of Wal-Mart, a struggle that pitted the company’s much publicized commitment to the highest moral and ethical standards against its relentless pursuit of growth. See, this is precisely why we need less government regulation of business, so companies will be free to cover up their misdeeds and protect their profits. Conservative paradise! Industry self-regulation for the win!

Can young evangelicals move beyond the Religious Right? — You know, it would be very easy for me to be snarky and cynical about the message of this piece, but I really want to take it seriously. Maybe this is a step in the right direction. (Snurched from Slacktivist.)

The Bourbon Democrats rise again? — “The Bourbon [Democratic-written] constitution of 1875 was a victory for prosperous . . . Alabamians who did not want to pay taxes to improve the lives of those less fortunate than themselves and who did not want to finance commercial development that did not benefit them directly.” What contemporary political party comes to mind?

Romney blames Obama for factory that closed under Bush — Considering that the entire Tea Party movement is founded on blaming Obama for things Bush did, why is this even news?

Sheriff Joe’s world crumbles — The controversial Arizona cop is prepping for a possible trial. But already, his closest allies have fallen. This amazes me. I always thought Arpaio was one of those conservative Untouchables, the real life version of what Republicans liked to pretend Bill Clinton secretly was.

?otd: Country or Western?

4/22/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (3,500 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: 239.8
Currently reading: Somewhere Else by Sally McLennan

Tags: Books, Cancer, climate, Culture, Endurance, Funny, Green, health, healthcare, Language, Links, Mexico, nature, Personal, Politics, Religion, reviews, Science, weird

Posted: 6:20 am Sun April 22 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad is as stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay

From Kerouac To Rand, ‘Harmful’ Reads For Writers — Hmmm.

Is the Book Cover Dead? — It sure doesn’t look good. Thanks, technology.

Letter from Philip K. Dick to Jeff Walker regarding “Blade Runner” — Wow. (Via danjite.)

The Missed Spanish Opportunity to Conquer China That Wasn’t — A weird little alt.hist stub that popped up in the political news.

Block That Comma! — Hahaha! Comma snark and The New Yorker. (Via my friend M—.)

Vintage movie posters for scary movies — Muahahahah!

Stonehenge you can bounce on — Mmm, inflatable trilithons. (From a mailing list I’m on.)

Evolution seen in ‘synthetic DNA’ — Wow.

New report recommends NASA rethink how it avoids contaminating other worlds

In the City, Bright is the New Black — White rooftops and urban temperatures.

Early Bloomers — [T]his year, after a record warm winter, blueberry bushes began to flower on April 1, six weeks earlier than in Thoreau’s time. Amazing, how liberals can get even the plants to cooperate in their climate change fraud. Thank God for good conservative outlets such as FOX News and Rush Limbaugh who keep those nasty, biased facts away from Real Americans.

‘Girls’ Through The Veil — Ta-Nehisi Coates on the representation of race in media. A very good read in its own right, as well as being food for thought for those of us who spend time working on writing the other.

Obama Faces Entrenched Resistance Among Some White Voters — Nope. No racism here. Not in conservative America. No sirree bob. Especially not from all those angry white conservatives who never said a damned thing about Bush’s wars, deficits or economic collapse until Obama became president and they could blame him.

Homophobia may reveal denial of own same-sex attraction, study suggests — I long ago reached the point of assuming that homophobia was a combination of religious bigotry and repressed homosexuality. That reality has been confirmed over and over and over.

Don’t Blame “Corporate Personhood” — Citizens United decimated what remained of campaign-finance reform, but the damage has been long in the making.

Tax rates are at historic lows — This is a fact. It is a true thing. You can look it up. But as with many facts these days, this fact is rejected by people who feel that facts are only factual if you “believe” in them. Thus we have one of the stranger aspects of American politics just now: Millions of citizens angry with President Obama for raising their taxes despite the fact that he actually lowered them. Welcome to conservative America, where reality takes a distant back seat to manufactured outrage and ideological convenience.

USDA to Let Industry Self-Inspect Chicken — Ah, the conservative dream of industry self-regulation springs to life again. What could possibly go wrong? Look how well it worked out for Enron, and Goldman-Sachs, and the entire mortgage industry, and the entire tobacco industry, and… (Via danjite.)

Cantor Suggests Anti-Semitism Is A Problem Within The House GOP Caucus — What, conservatives? Discriminating against someone on the basis of religion or race? Just as inconceivable as conservative discrimination by gender would be. Inconceivable, I tell you.

The Sympathy Gap — Republicans, in their own words. Disgusting. (Snurched from Slacktivist.)

GOP Senate Candidate Raese Compares No-Smoking Sign To Jewish-Star Patches — Conservatives: providing thoughtful, measured leadership on critical American issues since, um, never.

Condi Rice on veep slot: ‘Thank you, but no’ — Smart woman.

?otd: Are you sentimental, if you know what I mean?

4/20/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (3,200 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
Weight: 239.6
Currently reading: Somewhere Else by Sally McLennan

Tags: Art, Books, climate, Cool, Funny, gender, Language, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Process, race, Religion, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:24 am Fri April 20 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad toddles off to the oncology unit again

Because This Point Cannot Be Made Often Enough — Actually, I thought romance was bigger than that.

The Challenge of Going Vegan

Cadet: We’re Not Sleeping Here, There Are Dead Cows — Forest Service Considers Blasting Out Dead Cows With Explosives. From the department of real life being much weirder than fiction. (Via danjite.)

The Difference Between UX and UI: Subtleties Explained in Cereal — Hahahah. (Thanks to daviddlevine.)

Buried Treasure: World War II Spitfires To Be Unearthed in Burma — Cool! (Thanks to oldcharliebrown.)

Man strips naked at Oregon airport in TSA protest — Ah, Portland.

How Will Humans Fly to the Stars? — Naked?

‘Rogue’ Alien Planets May Circle Billions of Stars — Billions and billions!

Did Einstein’s First Wife Secretly Co-author His 1905 Relativity Paper?

Tupac “hologram” merely pretty cool optical illusion

Sound familiar? MSNBC article about the military getting ready for melting polar cap — [The] biggest preparers for global climate change are the military. Those damn hippies. Yep. Because national defense can’t be bogged down in pernicious ideological lies. Once again, the facts are biased against the conservative position.

De-legitimizing Christians outside the evangelical tribe — Even while they bemoan their alleged oppression with self-valorizing congratulations, the Christianists have been winning the media war.

Wealth & Righteousness? — Do we [Mormons] really believe that just because one is rich one is blessed by God? Cripes is that a vile and pernicious meme. Thank you, John Calvin. (Via theresamather.)

Catholic Bishop Claims Obama Is ‘Following a Similar Path’ To Hitler — One of the many, many reasons I am an atheist is moronic lunacy like this from the mouths of religious leaders. This isn’t some fringe nutcase with a trailer park chapel, this is a Prince of the Church speaking.

The Democrats’ Duty: Bring the GOP Back from Crazy — Interesting piece from the perspective of the angry left.

If Health Insurance Mandates Are Unconstitutional, Why Did the Founding Fathers Back Them? — That’s the problem with history. It rarely matches ideology unless you’ve been able to edit it yourself. Hence Christian “colleges” and the pathetic joke that is Conservapedia. Because the conservative version of reality hardly ever stands up to the facts. (Snurched from Slacktivist.)

Bush was wrong about his tax cuts, even to the name — Just this single piece of Bush’s GOP agenda pushed through in the first term of his presidency — his tax cuts, enacted in 2001 and 2003 — have added more dollars to the nation’s debt and deficit than almost all of the rest of his horrible policy initiatives combined. Remember kids, cutting taxes increases economic growth. Just ask any Republican about how that worked out in the past decade. They’ll proudly tell you that all our economic woes today are Obama’s fault.

?otd: Got tumors?

4/18/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (2,900 words on Their Currents Turn Awry)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.75 (solid)
Weight: 240.2
Currently reading: Somewhere Else by Sally McLennan

Tags: Christianists, climate, Cool, Culture, Food, Funny, healthcare, Links, music, Oregon, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, Science, Tech, Travel, weird

Posted: 5:31 am Wed April 18 2012 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad waits for the drums to stop beating

Review of Die Räder der Welt — At Phantasick-News, a German site. (Thanks to Marcel Bülles, my German translator.)

The Rejection Generator Project — The Rejection Generator rejects writers before an editor looks at a submission. Inspired by psychological research showing that after people experience pain they are less afraid of it in the future, The Rejection Generator helps writers take the pain out of rejection.

Mark Bourne Clarion West Scholarship Fund — A memorial for our dear friend. Check it out, and contribute if you can.

A View Inside the Sausage Grinder — Scrivener’s Error with more detailed legal neepery on the new ebook pricing lawsuit.

How My Aunt Marge Ended Up in the Deep Freeze . . . — Weird, weird piece.

Greenland ice sheet may be sliding away due to surface lake melt — Just a hypothesis so far (tip for denialists: what you like to confuse with “theory”), but more evidence of the inherent bias of reality in favor of a reality-based worldview. Weird, huh?

Roger Ailes: Soledad O’Brien Was ‘Named After A Prison’ — Ah, how I love the measured, thoughtful and rational tone of conservative discourse.

“Pro-Life” Community Very Upset More Women Will Not Be Collateral Damage in Their Religious Jihad Against Abortion — If they are so convinced they are right on the issue, why must they LIE about EVERYTHING? I would ask that of conservatives in general, and religious conservatives in particular.

If Romney Loses, the Republican Desire to Win the Presidency Will Trump All Other Considerations in 2016 — If Romney wins, it will be America turning a blind eye to the utter disaster that was the last period of Republican rule.

Mitt Romney thinks his wife lacks “dignity”? — Mitt Romney said this past January that he thinks stay at home moms taking care of small children are lacking in dignity since they’re not working real jobs. But Hilary Rosen!

Romney’s Live Mic Moment — But what stands out to me most is [Romney's] explicit statement of what seems to be his campaign strategy — remaining as vague as possible about what policies he’ll actually pursue. “I’m going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I’m probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go.” That’s because to get specific will alienate lot of voters. Nobody, not even Republicans, likes conservative policies when applied to them personally. Punishing the “other” is terrific GOP politics, but the reality is that even “real Americans” will get scorched of any of this ever turns out to be true.

Romney’s remarks on limiting tax deductions draw fire — Once again, conservative “ideas” aren’t popular when applied to conservatives personally. Removing the home mortgage interest deduction doesn’t punish liberal sluts or little brown people or the greedy poor, it punishes “real Americans”, and that will never fly with the GOP base. Republican voters like to imagine the cruelties behind which they rally will never apply to them. (See “the only moral abortion is my own” phenomenon for another glaring example of this deep hypocrisy inherent in the Right’s worldview.)

?otd: Got rhythm? Got music?

4/17/2012
Writing time yesterday: n/a (cancer stress)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (fitful)
Weight: 240.0
Currently reading: Somewhere Else by Sally McLennan

Tags: Books, climate, Conventions, ebooks, gender, Language, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, reviews, weird

Posted: 5:35 am Tue April 17 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad looks down upon the smiling faces

10 Epic Steampunk Cats — A funny little project for which I was both the initial inspiration and the writer of the introduction.

About Female Characters (or as I like to call them, Characters) — Adrienne Kress Is Wise. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Writer’s Block — Hahaha. (Via willyumtx.)

In Defense of “Nutty” Commas

What fictional character shares your birthday? — In my case, Forrest Gump and Freddie Krueger. (Snurched from Andrew Wheeler.)

Lots of planets have a north — Language Log on planetology and Dr. Who. Also, the comment section on this post is hilarious and well worth looking through.

Ways to Throw Your Sandwich Away — The Niece is funny. (Thanks to lillypond.)

Getting a sense of the census — A nifty slideshow about the 1940 census.

Cancer Medicine is Stuck in the Past — The chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society calls for a genomics-based approach.

Discovering the Mutants Among Us — Last year, the Sanger Institute boldly announced “We are all mutants” when a study was published showing that healthy individuals carry around 60 new mutations from their parents. I’m not sure why this is a bold announcement. I find it interesting but utterly unsurprising.

Emperor Penguins Counted From Space—A First — Um, wow…

The Wrong Stuff: North Korea’s Failure

The Messerschmitt Me 323 Gigant — A photo of one of my favorite WWII aircraft.

This Is, In Fact, Your Grandfather’s Safe Sex PSA — Whoo! (Thanks to danjite.)

The Wonderful, Unpredictable Life of the Occupy Movement — (Thanks to tillyjane.)

Breath-taking climate denial nonsense, this time aimed at NASA — [O]f the 49 signatories on that letter, not one is an actual working climate scientist. That should give you pause. The overwhelming majority of scientists who study the actual data and work with the actual climate models concur on climate change. (Much the same as with evolution.) Denialism only comes from those with ideological or personal axes to grind. Which, to a denialist, is a valorizing endorsement of their position as a courageous outsider battling the conspiracy. To the rest of us, that’s a strong clue about where reality actually can be found.

How Washington Forgot Where The ‘Buffett Rule’ Came From — Parrots for everyone! No, wait, wrong Buffett.

Catholic group criticizes Paul Ryan — Obviously, Catholic leaders who disagree with the Republican stance on any issue are Communists and secret Muslims.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker Breaks Into Building, Abducts Woman Inside — A hilarious spoof of what the conservative talking points would be on Cory Booker. This comes perilously close to violating Poe’s Law.

On taxes, Republicans repudiate Ronald Reagan — More of that justly famed conservative intellectual consistency. Conservatives are about Reagan the way Evangelicals are about the Bible: the icon means whatever they want it to mean, despite the actual words and deeds. Inviolably so, until the next time they change their minds.

Do Republicans realize they’ve just called for the repeal of welfare reform? — Slacktivist Fred Clark on the logical consequences Republican party’s brand new discovery that motherhood is hard work. Not that conservatives are ever responsible for the logical consequences of their positions.

Hilary Rosen was right: Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life. — Yes, the party that demonized and vilified Hillary Clinton with a tissue of lies is shocked when someone accurately challenges a candidate’s wife. Mmm, conservative principles in action.

Obama: Spouses should be left alone — Nice sentiment, and one I happen to agree with, but you are talking to the same conservative politicians and punditocracy who’ve spent the last two decades shredding Hillary Clinton. They certainly don’t agree with Obama, unless, of course, the spouse in question is a Republican spouse. In that case, basic fairness insists that no GOP candidate’s spouse ever be treated the way Democratic candidates’ spouses routinely are.

?otd: Did you polarize the pumpkin-eaters, static-humming panel-beaters, freshly day-glow’d factory cheaters?

4/14/2012
Writing time yesterday: n/a
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 9.25 (solid)
Weight: 242.2 (!)
Currently reading: Somewhere Else by Sally McLennan

Tags: Antarctica, Books, Cancer, climate, Cool, Culture, Funny, gender, healthcare, Language, Links, media, Niece, occupy, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, Science, sex, television, weird, Writing

Posted: 6:32 am Sat April 14 2012 | Comments(2) |