Weekend Linkee-poo is a house on fire too, but it has four alarms

Win all of Jay Lake's Green series.

The trill is gone, baby. But it really hasn't. That'a Marjorie Liu hitting the point where The book (ie. WIP) hits that wall that separates champaign and caviar from water and dry toast. But she turns around at the end. Yea. Writing is like that. (Grokked from John Scalzi)

I feel like calling up Eric and saying, "Eric, you're a luck man. You just blogged that at one of the three people in this country that could possibly follow that conversation."

"Any personal trainer will tell you that if you repeat the same workout over and over again, your body adapts to it and you stop improving… To continue to gain you have to push yourself to do things that are a little uncomfortable… But you also have to know your limits. Because if you push yourself to the point of exhaustion every day, all you get is diminishing returns. Your body and mind get weaker, worn down--not stronger, fiercer, sharper, more capable." Elizabeth Bear is wise in the ways of working out and writing.

I bet the Pentagon doesn't have anything like Henry VIII's wine cellar buried within its walls like the British MoD has. (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)

The insanity of gendered washroom signs. I'm pretty smart, but there's been one or two places that it took me a little to figure out which door to go through and was only relieved when I saw urinals. (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

"My guess is that (those who identify as both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice) would be approximately in favor of the old Clinton formula: safe, legal and rare…" This is something that many on the far edge of "Pro-Life" really don't get. All their polling tells them that the majority of people poll as "Pro-Life" so "they must believe what I believe." It's a common mistake. What is actually shows is most people are "Pro-Choice" (I would believe that as it's my stance, wouldn't I… irony, I'm not safe from it either) because, and this is my guess, most of those people are "I personally wouldn't want to get an abortion, but I'm not going to force *that* person to agree with me." This is the majority of the "Pro-Choice" movement. Unlike the "Pro-Life" movement (which has an actual lobbying body politic to speak for its positions and states) that says all abortion should be outlawed, the "Pro-Choice" side of the argument says we need to keep it as an option. And in that blue and purple bar you will find people who vary from the "only if the life of the Mother is in jeopardy" to "abortion available for any reason, all the way through full gestation." My guess is a sizable portion of the red bars also contain many who agree with the former statement, and just vehemently disagree with the latter. The problem for them is there is this official organization for "Pro-Life" that they've never really looked closely at, but will identify with in any event because it "represents" the majority of their individual opinion. They don't get that the organization is more radical (on abortion, birth control, sex ed and a variety of other points) that they are. And they don't get that the organization is not willing to compromise any of it (because, again, IMHO, "Pro-Life" isn't about abortion, it's about rolling back feminism and the sexual revolution).

"Checking the numbers, however, for last year you find that in terms of aggrevated (sic) assault per 100,000 people, Miami and Houston (few gun restrictions) have a rate of 361 and 329 respectively (third and fourth in the nation after Detroit and Baltimore). Chicago weighs in at 222 and DC at 154. (higher gun restrictions)" But that's okay, the claims that "crime is less" where "criminals fear the victim may be packing" is just more made up conservative lunacy. It's just fun for the rest of us to see that thinking destroyed by actual, you know, facts. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

"What I'm getting at, or trying to get at, is that the whole "conversation" or "fight" or whatever-you-want-to-call-it over gun ownership is basically borked (in the vernacular sense) outright from the start." Eric is insightful into the 2nd Amendment. What I think is somewhat humorous is how far the "gun debate" has come as I've been alive. When I was young it was "all about the hunters, proving for their families" and is now all about "keepin' the damn guberment outa our Social Security and Medicare."

Gayle Trotter pretty much makes the case for why some of us intelligent people with a memory think conservatives have gone full loopy. For someone warning us about trying to take guns away from our women folk so that they can't protect themselves, while last year that same person wrote against the Violence Against Women Act, it comes of as startlingly "situational ethics" and "grasping at whatever supports their view that day." You know, the thing all those good Christian Conservatives say us heathen Liberals are guilty of. Well, hello Kettle, the Pot is holding on line 3 for you.

And Jon Stewart's send up of the Senate Hearings on gun control. Also exposes the massive double think conservatives must engage in to support their ideology. The other explanation is they'll just fling poo at the wall until something sticks. "So, we need guns to protect us from a government simultaneously on the verge of fascism and impotence." Or as I saw tweeted the other day, for some Congressman shouting that President Obama is a Marxist Dictator they don't get that if he were, they would be disappeared or shot in the street for saying such.

And, it's all fun and games until lawmakers, who support "gun rights 100%" are confronted (well, not even confronted, but "around") a guy who carried a sidearm while on a tour of the Idaho State Capital. "As for the Cub and Boy Scouts, there’s an easy solution to the creepy factor here. Just arm the kids too. And any of the legislators who were creeped out about their own personal safety should simply carry guns as well. Then the entire building would be armed to the teeth and picture-perfect safe." But then the Senate President Pro-Tem asks "'What happens when six people come and sit in the front row of the gallery with shotguns across their laps?' Hill said. 'I sure as heck am not going to leave my senators in there with that.'" So, it's all right if the rest of us have a creepy guy with a gun following us around in the grocery store, but it's not all right for those Senators that gave that person the right to also be subject to such an event. Seriously, I wish I could say the hypocrisy is hard to find here. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

I know they're using other words, but all that comes out of the wacky conservatives these days are the typical school yard reposts of "nu uh", "no way", "you're not a true fan", "you don't do it often enough", and "I bet I could beat you at it." Seriously, the question was if the President had ever fired a gun. And the answer was, "Yes." I'm sorry Mr. Obama doesn't conform to the cartooned version of him in your head. But get over it. (Grokked from Jason Sanford)