Weekend Linkee-poo is working 3rds

Fuck cancer.

Fixing inconsistencies in your own series. A panel from ConFusion.

Finding joy when writing becomes work.

"The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that 'more than 400,000 high-resolution digital images of public domain works in the Museum’s world-renowned collection may be downloaded directly from the Museum’s website for non-commercial use.'" You know, sometimes I just love technology. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

Why solar energy jobs mean so much. (Grokked from Tobias Buckell)

"Yes, you are a screwed generation, Class of 2014, with a helping of debt that will take you many years to digest. But consider this other generation that has also been screwed, and screwed by the very same people who secured that millstone to your neck. You borrowed and forked over enormous sums in exchange for the privilege of hearing lectures . . . lectures that were then delivered by people who earned barely enough to stay alive. It is a double disaster of the kind that only we Americans are capable of pulling off." (Grokked from Kameron Hurley)

The changing picture of poverty and the resurgence of defacto debtors prison.

"(W)hen lean and obese research subjects were underfed in order to make them lose 10 to 20 percent of their weight, their hunger increased and metabolism plummeted. Conversely, overfeeding sped up metabolism." This isn't new, this is called the "Famine Mechanism". It's how we survived droughts and other famines (including over wintering). But here's the twist, "(T)he increasing amount and processing of carbohydrates in the American diet has increased insulin levels, put fat cells into storage overdrive and elicited obesity-promoting biological responses in a large number of people." Our food is making us fat, and making it more difficult to lose that fat. We're starving in the middle of all these calories. And that, in case you're wondering, is entirely by design. "But obesity treatment would more appropriately focus on diet quality rather than calorie quantity." Also, while not specified in this opinion article (based on actual science), not everything about digestion and food processing is completely understood. One such thing is flavonoids. Once considered junk, or at best "taste enhancing", chemicals we now know that they play a much more complex role. And processed foods have none of these. (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)

"The Republican party and the tea party are one in the same… according to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who was asked Thursday… if the string of victories for establishment-preferred candidates in the GOP primaries this week amount to a victory against the tea party." Because they're going to need the votes. And of the TP takes their little red ball and goes home, the GOP is going to lose seats. But that pretty much confirms what we all thought.

You know how conservatives are portrayed as strong on defense? Well, except when it comes to the Pentagon planning on how to handle climate change. So, apparently, they want to leave our grandchildren with their money, but not a functioning military to defend their freedom. (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)

Ted Cruz is one crazy whackaloon. The unfortunately thing is that he does have a point here. While the proposed Amendment to roll back the Citizens United decision isn't a "repealing" of the First Amendment, under current law it is a limitation of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has decided that money=speech and that without coordinating with a campaign corporations (which they've already decided in most cases "corporations=people") should be allowed to spend however much they wish without reporting their donors. No matter how much we disagree (with both money=speech, corporation=people, and non-disclosure of political spending), that's the law, and that's the interpretation of the First Amendment. However, unlike what the NRA likes to tell you, all of the first 10 Amendments have limitations and conditions already. This is just adding another one to the First Amendment (to join "incitement to violence" and "panic inducing" and "slander" and "peyote use in religion" and defining just who is "press", etc). So, has a legal point, still a whackaloon because he is implying so much more than what is actually happening. Hyperbole doesn't come close to describing this. (Grokked from John Scalzi)