Linkee-poo, how do you think I'm going to get along without you when you're gone?

NPR celebrates 50 years of Wes Wilson's psychedelic font/posters. Note because man, I dig his art. I've done a few homage pieces based on his work during my career. I think he's the only single artist I've done that with, although I've also done a lot of Swiss Type which is sorta diametrically opposed to his vision.

Shakespeare's head is missing. Someone must have done a spectacular Hamlet Act II opening scene somewheres. (Grokked from Mrs. Tadd)

Using x-rays to read fragile scrolls. SCIENCE!

What happens when you have a country with industrialization that refuses to enforce environmental laws. Well, you could look a the Yamuna River in India as an example. But don't look to closely. Don't want to get any of that on you.

Against the corporatization of the university and what it does to the professors and scholarship.

Because it'll be relevant this election season, Spurious Correlations. Lies, damnable lies, and statistics. (Grokked from Dan)

So, after the exposés of about 10 years ago, how are working conditions in the chicken houses for the workers? There's a report that because they're afraid to ask for bathroom breaks some have resorted to wearing diapers on the job. So, about the same as it was. Good think the major producers who own the chickens, own the feed, own the houses and force the farm owners into onerous contracts to supply them don't actually hire the employees that gather the chickens into the trucks and clean the houses. They engage outside firms to supply them with employees. That way they can avoid all these workplace issues and the pesky problem of undocumented workers doing the hard stuff.

Fuck cancer.

More on the Facebook allegations. And more here. So far, it's "anonymous reports" against Facebook, and the Senate is looking into it. Sort of like how the Benghazi Committee was forcing the Pentagon to look into allegations of someone who called into some radio talk show. It's the 1% Doctrine but applied to news organizations. Also, surprise, the GOP actually is concerned about a fair and open internet. You know, when they feel they're on the fuzzy end of the lollipop. I expect this to go the way of the IRS allegations (which is one of the topics the anonymous whistleblowers said was suppressed), a lot of smoke and heat about nothing once you find out more liberal groups were selected out to provide extended documents than conservative groups were.

"The researchers say this is the first example of any eukaryote that completely lacks mitochondria." Get out the whiteout, correction tape, and erasers, everybody. It's going to be a long night.

So, since I ding ad agencies when they make ad fails, here's a home run swing. A PSA to stop texting while driving.

The fire that set off the explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant is deemed a criminal act.

The middle class is going bye-bye. "Pew defines middle-income households as those having three people and an annual income between about $42,000 to $125,000, adjusted for the cost of living in a metro area and the number of household members." The good news is more communities are seeing people escalate up, but only by less than 10%. However, they don't state how populous those areas are.

The Philadelphia Police Department is shocked, shocked to find someone put a Google Maps Streetview Car sticker on their surveillance equipped SUV that photographs people's license plates to develop travel patterns of the citizens. So they took the sticker off. Note, not that they said anything about gathering up thousands of license plate numbers and storing them. (Grokked from Dan)

So, the GOP (and the Trumpster) have one major idea for health care reform; removing the barriers to interstate sales. "In the first of a series of videos about health policy promises that sound like a good idea but maybe aren't, Julie Rovner explores why increasing competition in health insurance by allowing sales of policies across state lines might not be such a hot idea after all." Yeah, pretty much not.

Senator Chuck Grassley posts an article on the refusal to proceed with hearings on Judge Merrick Garland and touts what a wonderful job he's doing. In the comments he's quickly taken to task for both his reading of history, his own statements to the contrary of his current positions, and simple mathematics. Sometimes it's okay to read the comments. (Grokked from Chuck Wendig)

A new worldwide report estimates that "(r)estrictive laws do not appear to lower the number of procedures, but do increase the likelihood of health risks to women who must seek unsafe procedures. Around $300m a year is spent treating an estimated 7m women who suffer complications after unsafe abortions." Yep. I'm sure the abstinence education pogroms will helps fix this. (Grokked from Annalee Flower Horne)

Why does there seem to be a disconnect when talking about politics? "43% of voters think the unemployment rate has increased while Obama has been President, to only 49% who correctly recognize that it has decreased. And 32% of voters think the stock market has gone down during the Obama administration, to only 52% who correctly recognize that it has gone up. In both cases Democrats and independents are correct in their understanding of how things have changed since Obama became President, but Republicans claim by a 64/27 spread that unemployment has increased and by a 57/27 spread that the stock market has gone down." Yeah, that could be it. (Grokked from Chip Dawes)

Tweet of my heart: @KameronHurley At the very least, many "full time writers" aren't full time novelists. They freelance many other kinds of corporate writing projects.