Linkee-poo says "Don't drive like my brother"

Well, that was disappointing. And how the hell did Brownback keep his seat? Seriously, Kansas, just how much does he have to fuck up before you toss him? Anyway, as I said in a tweet last night, apparently we all as a nation, and as the State of Ohio, need another lesson in just what it means to have conservatives run a government they so loath. At least the comics and late night show hosts will have great material for another few years.

Neil Gaiman on scaring children. Or, to paraphrase an early quote from him, yes, fairy tales tell you dragons exist, but they also tell you they can be slain. (Grokked from Christine Purcell)

"Yes, $75,000 sounds like a lot, but when it takes five years to complete a book and your agent is taking a cut of 15 per cent, you’re still below the poverty line if this is your sole source of income." And now that NaNoWriMo is off and going, here come the reality checks. A little bit about the writing life most writers live (YMMV, but you often don't hear about this in the media, you know, the place where you blithely rip the last page of the novel from the typewriter and a publisher shows up at your door with bags of money to take it away from you). (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)

And the economics of being a writer. And, once again, I'm in the wrong business. (Grokked from Saladin Ahmed)

XKCD is excellent about language. (Grokked from Dan)

Sugar, by any other name, would taste just as sweet. And it does. And the food manufactures use an awful lot of names for sugar. Even though I know most of these, I've been caught off guard by some (evaporated cane juice was the most recent). (Grokked from Cat Rambo)

You know how some of us talk about our democracy for sale in the era of dark money? "This is the year of the mega-donor: just forty-two people are responsible for nearly a third of Super PAC spending in the 2014 election cycle. That's pretty much what we're talking about. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)

I always love how some people want government to run like business. This is how business is run. That's some quotes from the MCX representative on why some of their members shut off the function that allows ApplePay on their cash registers. Funny, shutting off that function also shuts off their competing software. This is just stupidity on so many levels it's hard to comprehend. I certainly don't want my government to behave in such peevish ways. (Grokked from Dan)

"It is the nature of our profession." The head of Naval Warfare Special Command reminds his SEALs of their vows to keep mission information confidential.

Turns out that "armed felon" in the elevator with President Obama wasn't actually a felon. He's still fired, though.

"At least two electronic voting machines in a North Carolina county have been taken out of service after early voters reported that the machines repeatedly registered their Democratic choices as Republican votes in Sen. Kay Hagan's contentious reelection bid." Nothing to see here, citizen. Move along. (Grokked from John Scalzi)