Weekend link dump for December 6

How Shonda Rhimes treats story lines that involve abortion.

Felicia Day joins the MST3K revival. Nerds rejoice.

“I mention all this not just to point out that the fighting in Iraq lasted longer than five months and has now spread to Syria and the streets of Paris. I mention it because it’s a reminder of why you don’t start wars of choice. I mention it because there’s a lesson in here somewhere about violence and entertainment and greed and opulence and what it means to sell out. I mention it because the people we ask to fight our wars never seem to come first.”

“In what’s probably the most Canadian sentence I will ever write, the Edmonton Eskimos have successfully lobbied the Canadian Football League to restrict the Ottawa Redblacks from bringing along the loggersports team that traditionally saws off a celebratory log slice after touchdowns.”

How to tell if someone is your second cousin once removed or your first cousin twice removed.

Why spelling counts when you are trying to get away with murdering someone.

How we talk about abortion matters. We know it, and anti-choice extremists and politicians know it.”

“The photo I was going for of the perfect dive, flawlessly straight, with no splash required not only me to be in the right place and get a very lucky shot but also for the bird itself to get it perfect”. It only took six years and 720,000 attempts to get it right.

You must take the A Train/To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem

Many other states have online voter registration. We’re not allowed to have nice things in Texas.

“Activists and people of good will in a civilized democracy have an obligation to undertake difficult positions on moral issues that they feel strongly about, [but they] need to be unmistakably clear in rejecting the extremists who try to carry their banner. And it should be done before we have someone shooting up a clinic, not afterwards.”

Best wishes to a happy retirement (and maybe a coaching career) to Mike Hessman, the U.S. minor league career home run leader, with 433 Triple A and below long balls. He also hit 14 taters in the majors.

How ISIS and Boko Haram profit from climate change.

“New research for the first time has put a precise count on the people and groups working to dispute the scientific consensus on climate change. A loose network of 4,556 individuals with overlapping ties to 164 organizations do the most to dispute climate change in the U.S. […] [I]t’s striking to notice that a similarly vast infrastructure of denial isn’t found in any other nation.”

“Let’s put this clearly: the stressor at work here is the perceived and real loss of the social and economic advantages of being white.” See this for more.

“The triumph of bullshit has consequences far beyond the political realm, making society as a whole more credulous and willing to accept all sorts of irrational beliefs.”

Donald Trump may break polling before he’s done.

You are now free to use “they” as a singular pronoun at the Washington Post.

“The wildly popular photo-sharing app Instagram has become a new source of name inspiration for today’s expectant parents. Many of Instagram’s filter names are gaining in popularity as baby names.” Yes, I agree, that’s crazy, but on the other hand, having more Ludwigs in the world can’t be a bad thing.

RIP, Sandy Berger, former National Security Adviser.

“So the question becomes, in order to combat income inequality, why is all the focus on re-instating Glass-Steagall? Why aren’t we talking about reinstating things like the Robinson-Patman Act?”

“Just in case you didn’t already think Elizabeth Taylor was completely fabulous, she ran an underground safe house during the AIDS crisis.”

What Igor Volsky says.

The untold story of the comic book adaptation of The Wiz that never got published.

Is 2016 the new 1972? Maybe.

The best and worst of the five-year transportation bill that Congress miraculously passed.

“New Yorker Lori Berenson, who was convicted of aiding leftist rebels in Peru 20 years ago, returned to her hometown on Thursday.”

RIP, Scott Weiland, former lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver.

RIP, Robert Loggia, veteran tough-guy actor.

Related Posts:

This entry was posted in Blog stuff and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.