Friday, May 30, 2014

Friday Links!

It's Friday again! It's already June!?!?! Here's a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

Balcony Burglar Bolts for Bay. The people who write for the Seattle PD Blotter blog & twitter stream trying to keep it fun.

Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again. An essay ignored by the Vatican since the '70s, translated into English for the first time, shows that the Catholic Church has ordained women in the past, and could do so again.

Visual gags in comedies: US vs UK. This is a very thoughtful, entertaining, and short meditation on how all films can be improved.

Jackson Hole is first Wyoming city to pass LGBT nondiscrimination protections. (I only lived in Wyoming for a few months during third grade, but I'm always happy when something good happens there)

The mammoth that trampled on the history of mankind.

Let's call the Isla Vista killings what they were: misogynist extremism.

Stormé DeLarverie, “Rosa Parks” Of The Gay Rights Movement, Dies At 93.

Physicists Prove Surprising Rule of Threes.

Pluto’s big comeback: Why it could be reclassified as a planet.

When the Earth Had Two Moons.

Derpitude: Open Carry Group in Texas sues because they can’t approach motorists while fully armed.

An ancient battle: A 900-pound croc takes on a 58-foot snake.

In Your Face, With Cake.

I wrote about one of the meanings of family in a post called Relativity.

Eli Lieb - Young Love (Official Music Video):



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Sam Smith - Leave Your Lover:



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Maya Angelou on Sesame Street - My Name:



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A thoughtful commentary on the history of the words trans, tranny, and the current controversy:



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"Man up" (really?):



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Friday, May 23, 2014

Friday Links (for a 3-day weekend!)

It's Friday again! Here's a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

New York roomies return $41,000 found in thrift-store couch.

Curbing Online Abuse Isn’t Impossible. Here’s Where We Start. How one enormous gaming community actually reduced online harassment.

The Art of the Title: Rockford Files. A nice look at the design of an awesome title sequence.

Artifact of the month: Disk of Enheduanna. Part of the Ur Digitization Project.

Americans Claim to Attend Church Much More Than They Do.

Maine: State ethics investigators recommend national anti-gay-marriage group be fined $50,250. They broke the law in '09 by not registering as a political group and then spent at least $2,000,000 on the campaign. They refused to disclose their donors, also as required by law. They lost every appeal, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and have missed multiple deadlines to file tax information. Yet they still insist that theirs is the moral high ground?

400-plus years for gang rape of targeted lesbian. A good, long time...

Twitter joke took five years to pull off — but totally worth it for Rocky Horror fans.

Found: the dinosaur that survived a mass extinction.

Uncovered Papers Show Past Government Efforts to Drive Gays From Jobs . What's kind of surprising about this article is 1) how recent some of this is, and 2) just how casually they hurl around blatantly awful ideas in these official memos.

Maine report suggests NOM violated laws in other states, lied to government authorities. As Gomer would say, "Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"

Yu recites oath, becomes first openly gay justice on Wash. state Supreme Court.

Strange Findings on Comb Jellies Uproot Animal Family Tree.

Sailor Neptune and Uranus Come Out of the Fictional Closet. The gay content isn't news to Anime fans, but the new English releases that no longer hide is are welcome.

I Don't Want to Die Alone. It's not just tuxes and cakes...

Why Chess Will Destroy Your Mind. This article from an 1859 Scientific American may surprise you.

Local Lawmaker Compares Gays To Nazi Youth.

Snake Species That Went Missing For 78 Years Is Found.

92-year-old Texas woman denied photo ID to vote: “Not to be able to vote breaks my heart”.

House Science Committee Asked Some Very Non-Scientific Questions at the Astrobiology Hearing.

Yay for same-sex marriage, but ....

'You guys are HUSBANDS?': Boy's incredulous (but adorable) reaction to meeting a gay couple for the first time.

I wrote about a sort of recent historic event: "...that mountain top is sure to blow!".

Arcade Fire - We Exist (and who knew Andrew Garfield would make a hot transgirl?_:



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KOGA "Lucky Man" Directed By Emile Hirsch:



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Pentatonix - Love Again [Official Video]:



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Friday, May 16, 2014

Go! Go! Godzilla (and Friday Links)!

It's Friday again! Here's a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

I wrote earlier this week about how It bothers some people that we exist.

Rare insect believed to be extinct since 1946 is pictured on Kent coast.

Oldest living orca ‘Granny’ visits NW over Mother’s Day weekend.

Gross. Disgusting. Weird. Watching NFL players kiss wives, girlfriends.

Virginia official: Non-Christian public prayer violates my rights ‘because I don’t believe that’. Talk about the mote in your neighbor's eye...

The Seven Most Popular G.K. Chesterton Quotes He Never Said.

Bring asteroids to life with NASA’s Target Asteroids! project.

Dangers Of Supreme Court Prayer Ruling Quickly Become Clear.

Giant 17-million-year-old fossil sperm found.

Quantum positioning system steps in when GPS fails.

Magnetar Formation Mystery Solved?

The Last Living Recipient of VA Benefits from the Civil War.

Ohio teacher at Catholic school refuses to sign contract that requires her to condemn her gay son.

Dumbest argument against marriage equality yet?

The Library of Congress Wants to Destroy Your Old CDs (For Science).

LGBT Couples Participate In Great Facebook Kiss-In.

And proof that no one is immune to writing headlines in click-bait cliches:Oddball Eclipse Makes Sun Brighter. Because titling it, "Binary star demonstrates gravity lensing" is too boring.

The Impossible Anatomy of Godzilla.

A LITTLE HISTORY: LGBT REPRESENTATION IN MAINSTREAM AMERICAN COMICS, PART 1. A long, but interesting, read.

On ‘The John Green Effect,’ Contemporary Realism, and Form as a Political Act. Or, people who don't actually read a lot of young adult fiction shouldn't write about young adult fiction.

How to Talk to Your Kids About Michael Sam:



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Tom Goss - Illuminate the Dark:



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Chris Salvatore covers Imagine Dragons - Demons:



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Awesome 1940's Swing-style Cover of a Madonna Classic:



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Blue Oyster Cult Godzilla:



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Friday, May 9, 2014

Friday Links!

It's Friday again! Here's a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

Something Weird Happens When Three Master Fencers Battle Fifty Novices.

Drone Whale Watching Hawaii. Footage of whales taken from a drone.

271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book. A handmade instruction book on how to much watercolors. It's amazing! Thanks to my husband for the link.

Apple’s iPad business isn’t collapsing, but the rest of the tablet industry sure is.

Spilled Milk: Scouting for My Son’s America.

Retired Colonel Offers His Burial Plot To Lesbian Vet Denied Burial In Idaho.

55,000 Christians: We’re ‘Appalled By Sarah Palin’s Twisted Misrepresentation Of Our Faith’.

Polls don’t identify the real science education problem.

A Marine Biologist Explains Godzilla's Exponential Growth.

Meet Carl DeMaio: Anti-gay gay, newest victim of the war on intolerance.

Porn Websites or Religious Websites—Where Are You Likelier to Pick Up a Computer Virus?.

It’s Different for Girls. "The PC manufacturer’s senior vice president who had been instrumental in crafting the deal suggested he and I sign over dinner in San Francisco to celebrate. When I arrived at the restaurant, I found it a bit awkward to be seated at a table for four yet to be in two seats right next to each other, but it was a French restaurant and that seemed to be the style, so down I sat..."

Nearest bright “hypervelocity star” found.

New model, spanning 13 billion years of cosmic evolution, makes important advances.

CEO Of Biggest Fast Food Chain Comes Out In Favor Of A Minimum Wage Increase.

Murray bill would force Social Security to pay same-sex spouses survivor benefits.

Ted Cruz Champions Nuremberg-Style Laws for Gays and Lesbians.

DAILY SHOW: Jon Stewart’s Gaywatch – Lesbian Life Cycle Edition.

Hercules & Love Affair ft. John Grant — I Try To Talk To You (Official Video):





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Friday, May 2, 2014

Friday Links!

It's Friday again! And it's May. In Seattle we celebrated May Day with protest marches. A lot of protest marches. (You won't believe this, but this is one of the official Seattle Police Department comments on their twitter account during the protests: "Officers were able to separate the superheroes and their black-clad adversaries. No arrests made.")

Here's a collection of news and other things that struck me as worthy of being shared:

America Is Losing Its Religion… and We’re All Better Off Because of It. It's a statistical fact!

Beware of Those Who Do Things 'For the Children'. Why don't they oppose convicted murderers, drug addicts, and even those those convicted of child abuse getting married and having children?

Top Ten Characters Who Need Their Own Novel. If you love books and don't follow The Librarian Who Doesn't Say Shhhh, you are really missing out!

The Eye of Sauron Appears Over Sweden. Sunlight and ice crystals in the atmosphere do freaky things!

Watch the video for Brett Gleason's Imposter.

Local GOP Party Chair Compares Obama To Zebra-Donkey Hybrid Who Is All 'A**'.

Church Sues For First Amendment Right To Perform Gay Marriages In NC. When the news came out earlier that they passed this law criminalizing ministers performing ceremonies, I was wondering how anyone could have thought this would pass Constitutional muster. I'm just surprised it took this long for someone to fill the lawsuit.

American Family Association LEADER SAYS MISSISSIPPI BUSINESSES DISPLAYING GAY-FRIENDLY 'DON'T DISCRIMINATE' STICKERS ARE BULLYING CHRISTIANS. They keep stretching that definition further and further...

Nobody Gets To Tell My Sons What It Means To Be A Man.

We Are Comics. A project in response to the "no girls" folks in the comics world.

Op-ed: My Two Dads.

93 Percent Of Straight Men In This Study Said They've Cuddled With Another Guy.

IOWA LEGISLATURE APPROVES UPDATE TO 'BADLY OUTDATED AND DRACONIAN' HIV CRIMINALIZATION LAW.

Biden gets out in front of Obama on LGBT discrimination.

Dark Matter Might Be Hiding In Microscopic Black Holes, Astrophysicists Say.

This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist. It's easy for polite American society to condemn Cliven Bundy and banish Donald Sterling while turning away from the elegant, monstrous racism that remains.

Nearby galaxy is a 'fossil' from the early universe.

"But why does he have girl's hair?".

Over the course of 12 years, Richard Linklater made a film about a boy growing up. Here's the trailer:



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Imposter - Brett Gleason (Official Video):



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Matt Goss - I Do :



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