05 April 2015

Link round-up for 5 April 2015

You didn't think those were real bricks, did you?

This gym offers a cardio workout with an incentive (found via Mendip).

Tengrain does Easter.

Teh shrooms will save the world (found via GoodShit).

No need to bother with the election -- Republicans have a sure-fire plan to destroy both Hillary and Obama.

This short William Blake poem will give you a feel for life under a theocracy.

And somebody photographed the sign!

This Canaanite myth is probably the basis of the story of Adam and Eve.  The changes between the original version and the Biblical one are revealing.

So far, Obamacare has prevented about 50,000 deaths.

As recently as the 1950s, the Dutch Catholic Church used castration to punish boys who reported sexual abuse.

This overview of anti-Semitism in Europe is seriously discouraging.

The ideology of Geoffrey Botkin epitomizes the cold horror of rigid fundamentalism.

Iran is more modern than you think (and mall consumerism is now a thing, apparently).

Is the Republican party a cesspit of anti-gay bigotry?   There's plenty of evidence.

Ted Cruz is our anointed king (seriously, read it, these people walk among us).

Sometimes a picture really does say more.

The Indiana backlash reflects exasperation with right-wingers' twisting of concepts like religious freedom.  For all their whining, they're not beaten yet.

Tim McGaha looks at the endgame of the Civil War -- the Confederacy's self-delusion in the face of onrushing defeat reminds me a little of modern Republicans.

Christian dogma leads to ghastly mishandling of sexual assault cases at Bob Jones University (found via Republic of Gilead).

Jesus stages a daring hostage-rescue raid (somebody should do a comic book about this).

Big-business opposition to anti-gay laws is dividing Republicans, driving a wedge between fundies and business (see comments).

The vigorous anti-theist position is rooted in truth, not tactics.

Great news, there's no evidence linking you to the crime!  Oops, sorry we kept you on death row for 30 years.

Under Christie, the New Jersey lottery falls victim to yet another privatization fiasco.

Fred Phelps is gone, but the Independent Fundamentalist Baptists will do in his absence.

Here are some important truths about American slavery.

There's a promising new male birth control method in the works, but it faces obstacles (found via GoodShit).

83% of Americans call themselves Christian, but beliefs are so heterodox that far fewer can credibly claim the name.  RedState throws a fit.

The battle of Indiana is a huge defeat for the anti-gay movement (found via Republic of Gilead) and for "Christian nation" culture (found via Fair and Unbalanced).

I agree with Gryphen here -- it's not acceptable to terrorize people with threats, even if they're bigots.

Huckabee goes off the deep end (found via Republic of Gilead).

18 years in prison seems hardly enough for this invasion of privacy.

Republicans have a path to victory, but they aren't on it.

We need to keep an eye on this minister -- he sounds dangerously out of control.

Despite Saudi bombing, the Houthi rebels continue to advance in Yemen.  Kaveh Mousavi has five important reminders about the conflict.

Presidential approval ratings since Eisenhower reveal effects of right-wing epistemic closure.

Jon Stewart's successor has a few issues.

Here's a look at the 9/11 Memorial Museum (found via GoodShit).

[Note:  I'm not bothering to separate these out by geographical area any more.  "Lighter" items are still at the beginning.]

4 Comments:

Anonymous NickM said...

D'ya think (as in the UK) the use of the term "contraception" might move the debat further than the use of the term "birth control"? Birth control always seemed to me to be a way of having a couple of kids nicely spaced and not a dozen. My wife has a hormonal implant which is virtually fool-proof because neither of us want kids. That's contraception.

Why do Americans use a term that, to me, implies something other than sex as fun and a bound between two humans?

Ya get me? I'm a bit Brahms.

05 April, 2015 10:32  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Nick: I don't have the impression there's felt to be any real difference between the two terms, at least in the US.

07 April, 2015 03:37  
Anonymous Zosimus the Heathen said...

Re the piece about Iran being a lot more modern than many people think, there's a young Iranian woman who works at the same place I do, who once complained that she's had people make some utterly ridiculous assumptions about her based on where she comes from. One twit, for example, assumed she'd lived in the desert and ridden a camel everywhere back in Iran (she actually comes from Tehran, and said she'd never even seen a camel until she'd come out here to live*!), while an even bigger fool assumed she didn't know what toast was!

*Fun fact: there're so many camels living in the Australian outback that we've actually begun exporting them to the Middle East! Not sure when they were introduced here, but I have a feeling it was in the 19th Century, when a lot of Afghans came out here to live and work (a rather fascinating chapter in Australian history that not many people know about).

09 April, 2015 05:12  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Zosimus: Sounds depressingly familiar. There are certainly people in the US who are similarly ignorant. It's no wonder quite a few people from the Middle East think we're all dimwits.

10 April, 2015 03:50  

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