Artlandia's glossary of pattern design terms. Just in case you need it. (Grokked from Mary Robinette Kowal)
And if you're looking for poisons, here's the Poison Review blog and Wired's Elemental blog (which talks about poisons). (Grokked from Kelly Swails)
Oh no, there goes Tokyo, go, go Giant Jellyfish. From some research trying to find if this is photoshopped or not (I believe it is, it looks that way looking at the light sources) "No one knows for sure what's causing this jellyfish traffic jam (in the Sea of Japan). It's possible that oceans heated by global warming are creating the perfect jellyfish breeding ground. Another theory is that overfishing has decreased the numbers of some fish, which may allow the jellies to chow down without competition for food." History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man.
"Mint Press News reported that real wages fell across the board by 2.8 percent between 2009 and 2012 as global food prices continue to rise. As a result, the value of SNAP benefits decreased by seven percent during that time, according to a recent report by the USDA. And as we reported in June, cutting SNAP would disproportionately affect children who depend on the benefit for vital nutrition in their first years of life." The GOP is planning to cut SNAP even more than their first attempt, which failed. Someone once said, "Let them eat cake" (which we can debate as a reference to a popular play and not a political statement, but in either case), how did that work out for them? (Grokked from the Slactivist)
Back after Egypt's Arab Spring there were many (mostly conservative) talking heads spouting that the Muslim Brotherhood should have been kept out of the process. Well, even though Moressy was "removed from office" for other reasons, the Muslim Brotherhood took it as a sign of an attack on them (which, truth be told, probably isn't so far from the truth as some would like to believe). Now we have a live experiment on what they were advocating for. This. Warning, some of those images may be disturbing to you. (Pointed to by John)
"Who would be so callous as to put partisan spite over the basic health care needs of their community?… Desperate right-wing activists know the law won't be repealed; they know it can't be stopped in the courts; and they know there's a limit to Republican efforts to sabotage the federal health care system. So they've been reduced to one last-ditch effort: convince people with no health care coverage to voluntarily turn down affordable insurance so as to advance their ideological cause." I wonder if Freedomworks will cover all these people's fines? See, I would guess that's part of the strategy. Make people not get insurance, who will then have to pay fines for not getting insurance. This tactic has been successful in the past, it's the basic protest strategy of people begging to be arrested because they know the police and courts can't process them all. But here's the thing, in this case we have these things called "computers" that will do much of the work. But then, the opposition to Obamacare continue to peddle on well debunked lies. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
You know how a lot of people (again, mostly conservatives) like to spout about how the minimum wage needs to be kept low so they can keep their prices low and give better service to their customers? Well, what about those companies that don't buy into that and pay and treat their employees well. Turns out a number of them do quite well and tend to have a better brand and customer loyalty (just a note, I would love to go to Costco, but the only store in the area is very inconvenient for us to get to). Oh, and that canard about these companies that pay low wages creating jobs? Yea, turns out that isn't true either. But then you need to factor in that, for fast food minimum wage workers, "(h)ead honchos get $11.9 million a year on average, including options, while full-time employees earn $15,080…/ And what's one of the major problems? Companies in pursuit of the quarterly profit statement (see link to Tobias Buckell's site previously on shareholder value), we've returned to the horrendous practice of considering employees as "cost units." "Employees are seen not as valuable assets but rather as 'costs' which must be reduced as much as possible to increase profits for the corporations which are already earning record profits and pay huge salaries and bonuses to further line the pockets of top employees who are already rich." I really can't believe we're back to this mental pygmyism (which gives a bad name to pygmies, sorry about that) and moral bankruptcy. I've said it before, we have real life experiments regarding these policies and ideologies. And it hardly ever looks good. (Grokked from the Slactivist)
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