16 February 2014

Link round-up for 16 February 2014

Think you got weather?  This is weather (found via Mendip).

Don't take inspiration from these writers (found via Otto's Son).

A conservative gives his analysis of a recent gay-marriage ruling by an African-American judge.

Isn't this a little outside New Jersey's jurisdiction?

"Art for Michael" offers a little hope in a sad story.

Science?  Bah.

Blaspheme proudly!  But remember, some religions are tolerant.

General David Petraeus isn't running for President, but he's made an endorsement.

Racial attitudes in the NFL need some work.

Rah, rah, we're number 93!

Logically, no Christian should support the death penalty.

Here's a good summary on Presidents' use of executive orders.

Bitcointards get pwned again as yet another illegal marketplace website claims to have been hacked and robbed.

This is just evil.

Evolution education is under attack in Missouri -- do I even need to say the perp is a Republican? Meanwhile, creationists are fighting each other.

The Republican field of Presidential candidates for 2016 looks almost as pathetic as 2012.

The Lakota Sioux join the fight to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.

Ted Cruz has flushed Senate Republicans out from under cover on the debt ceiling.

These days, "religious liberty" means the "freedom" to discriminate and exclude. Andrew Sullivan comments.

Wendy Davis supports medical marijuana and gay marriage, but needs to be clearer on abortion.  Tim McGaha looks at the race.  Texas's missing voters will be crucial.

Bob Jones University doesn't want its handling of sexual abuse to be examined too closely.

Political journalism lost its way when it switched from reporting facts to analyzing power games. But sometimes it's worse than that.

Since 1973, 143 people have been released from death row after being proven innocent.  How many innocent people have been executed?

The teabaggers are on the warpath against the Republican establishment, but the establishment is fighting back.

Here are the best and worst places to be gay -- notice what all but one of the red areas have in common?

Nazi propaganda exploited sexual insecurities.

Switzerland's referendum vote to limit immigration encourages nationalist parties across western Europe.

Israel is on the brink of a breakthrough in anti-missile technology.

The Putin regime is getting hysterical about the ongoing protests in Ukraine.

US bobsledder Johnny Quinn, last seen trapped in his bathroom in Sochi, gets stuck in an elevator.

The Olympic closing ceremony falls on a historic date.

Even under Rouhani, the Iranian theocracy remains an enthusiastic user of the death penalty, most recently against an Arab poet accused of separatism.

Lebanese Olympic skier Jackie Chamoun's topless photos provoked scowls from her country's bluenoses -- and a quite different reaction from many others.

Things get a bit heated in the Turkish parliament.

Religious believers in Pakistan oppose pornography.

The Syrian civil war now has four opposing sides.

Spurned by the US, Egypt's secular military government turns to Russia.

An Iraqi Islamist teacher makes a little mistake (yes, it's OK to laugh).

China's gender imbalance is getting scary, but attitudes are changing.

Lucy in the sky is a diamond.

The sixth great mass extinction in the Earth's history is beginning -- in the oceans.

Genetic analysis of a 12,600-year-old body separates reality from fantasy.

Ant wars are coming -- lock up your computers!

We're making progress in giving artificial hands a sense of touch.

Patterns in the cosmic microwave background may be evidence that other universes exist (found via Mendip).

Liquid water may still exist on Mars now.

German and Italian scientists engineer glowing fruit flies to fight cancer.

5 Comments:

Blogger Ahab said...

I'm baffled when conservative Catholics and other believers claim that suffering brings one closer to God. Meaningful suffering that achieves some positive end might offer spiritual insights, but where will you find insights in meaningless suffering that ends only in death? In my experience, suffering never results in any spiritual epiphanies; it just sucks.

As for the anti-gay law map, the pattern of red countries IS revealing.

16 February, 2014 12:15  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Ahab: Religionists seem to make a virtue of suffering because their dogmas lead to so much misery, as in this case. It's twisting evil into a virtue.

For anyone else who didn't pick up on it, all the countries which have the death penalty for homosexuality are Muslim except Nigeria, which is almost half Muslim.

17 February, 2014 03:56  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Note -- the "birthday invitation response" item which was included here has been revealed as a hoax. Accordingly, I've removed it from the round-up.

Creating a hoax of this kind is despicable. All it does is undermine the credibility of actual victims of bigotry when they speak out.

17 February, 2014 03:58  
Anonymous Blurber said...

"An Iraqi Islamist teacher makes a little mistake . . . "

I'm glad I didn't sign up for this guy's class.

17 February, 2014 10:10  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Blurber: I guess such things will happen when, by necessity, they have to hire teachers with no prior experience in the skill they're teaching.

17 February, 2014 11:51  

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