29 May 2010

Link roundup for 29 May 2010

Four Dinners has started his new job as a driving instructor. It's a job packed with thrills. And here's more.

Citizen K looks at San Antonio and Texas music.

100 years after his death, Mark Twain's autobiography will soon be published.

Crime in the US has been strongly declining since the early 1990s, and is still doing so despite the recession.

For Memorial Day, a reminder of what it's really about.

Parsley's Pics has video of hideous abuse on an Ohio dairy farm, and a petition -- be warned, the video is really disturbing.

Military academies suffer from declining standards.

Has teabaggerdom done anything to help the Republicans?

The prospect of repealing DADT is bringing out the worst in the Republicans -- even Scott Brown.

McCain's war record is under scurrilous attack -- from the right.

Republicans lose hope of winning a majority in the House this year (found via Oliver Willis).

Obama seems to have truly awoken from his earlier vain dreams of bipartisanship (found via Green Eagle).

All of the Republican candidates for Governor of Iowa have something in common.

Not just profits over people -- foreign profits over people.

Yet another Bible-thumping, family-values-spouting Republican politician is credibly accused of an extramarital affair. Not news these days, you say? Well, this one's a woman.

My previous post linked to this analysis showing that hard-line right-wingers are less likely to win elections than are moderate conservatives. Now a similar analysis has shown that the same does not hold true on the left -- strongly liberal candidates are about as likely to win as moderate liberals.

Republican Governor Jindal of Louisiana must wish he hadn't gone on record about offshore oil drilling.

A Chinese historian claims that the USSR planned to destroy China with nuclear weapons in 1969, but backed off under US pressure.

Must-read: Liam Fox explains why opposing Islam is not at all similar to racism or bigotry (found via Mad Mike's America).

It's not just the Catholics.

North Dakota offers two embarrassments.

PZ Myers dissects the vapid dishonesty of Francisco Ayala and the Dalai Lama.

The American Academy of Pediatrics toughens its stand on female genital mutilation.

Cleansing the Louisiana wetlands of oil may be impossible.

WASP-12b has only ten million years left.

7 Comments:

Anonymous rita said...

I'm looking forward to the Mark Twain autobiography, for sure.
I just read Gunther Grass's latest "Peeling The Onion" Interesting. It put's the "Tin Drum" in a different light.

I was afraid to look at the Dairy expose. I already feel guilty about my meat & eggs, but the cheese & butter, too?

31 May, 2010 07:11  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

It does make me wonder what Twain had to say, that he didn't want to be made public for a century.

The dairy video is nothing to do with normal farming practices, just pure sadism -- a calf being stomped, cows being stabbed with pitchforks, that kind of thing. I doubt it will make you feel guilty about anything, but I'm not kidding about it being disturbing.

31 May, 2010 08:57  
Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

Memorial Day Greeting's Mr.Infidel!

Enjoyed the link alot to the Texas Tejano Music .... Thanx

31 May, 2010 09:05  
Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

BTW .... nice piece also on Wasp 12b, I was looking into as well last week.

31 May, 2010 09:07  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

WASP-12b must have even hotter summers than Texas -- imagine what it must be like on a world which is being absorbed by the sun.....

31 May, 2010 10:46  
Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

Yep! I reckon it is a tad hotter than Texas .... I dont think I can imagine though .... none of us would even exist Pardna! Later Guy ........ :)

PS: I know this gal (US Army) that done a couple year's in the Iraq War. She told me the heat isnt shit in Texas compared to Iraq's hot season .... she actually told me that it got so hot in the day (over 120) that in the desert you had to have a certain kind of sole on your boot's, because if you wore something like tennies, the sand actually would melt the sole of your shoe. She told me of these lone tribe's way out in the middle of some desert region's .... and they only came out at night. Nonetheless, she had some interesting stories, for beer chat!

31 May, 2010 15:49  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

This is true. Summer temperatures in Iraq can exceed 120°F, which is very high even by Middle Eastern standards. I'm not surprised if some human populations there have become nocturnal.

As for conditions on other planets, the temperature on Venus (Earth's nearest neighbor) is about 900°F with atmospheric pressure about fifty times as high as on Earth -- conditions which would kill a human instantly. The environment on WASP-12b must be far more extreme even than that.

31 May, 2010 18:52  

Post a Comment

<< Home