Being respectful of the Native American culture and stories. (Grokked from someone, sorry)
"A 4-year-old was allegedly forced by his teacher to write with his right hand, even though he’s left-handed… According to KFOR, the child was sent home with a letter about how left-handedness is often associated with evil and the devil." Oh Great C'thulhu take me now. Before you comment, yes, I know "sinister" means "left handed". I am left handed. I had to deal with this crap when I was a kid. Fuck the religious liberty arguments, forcing a child who is left handed to be right handed has been shown to have dire psychological effects. (Grokked from Jim Wright)
No, seriously, it's time this country had a sit-down discussion. It didn't happen when doctors refused to save their patients' lives when they required an abortion. It didn't happen when pharmacists refused to dispense birth control (Plan B, daily pills, and condoms). It didn't happen when that teacher burned crosses into kids' forearms. It didn't happen as the Religious Right banned Playboy from store shelves because they were offended by seeing it(actually it was because of the temptation, if they had fought on the objectification of women I might have supported it), and now there is this fight with Kim Davis and then this shit (not to mention giving public funds to sectarian schools and some of the heinous fuckery that goes on there). Your religious rights stop at the end of your body. You can believe whatever you want, really. Even to dancing with poisonous snakes if you want. But you don't get to impose your religious values on others. If your religious freedoms threaten the life of someone below the age of majority, we're going to impose societal norms to save their life. If you're a professional, do the gorram job already.
How the world would look if everybody was an asshole. (Grokked from John Scalzi)
Hey, you know how security people kept on saying how biometrics would be the ultimate security feature? Yea, still vulnerable to hacking. (Grokked from Robert J Bennett)
"With a slightly different setup, a thermal gain of 2 is reached, thus clearly above break-even for all neutronicity values possible." Or, in other words, fusion reaction. Also, this is how we'll learn about it. Not from an evening news report, but through a boring scientific paper published in a journal. In this case using lasers to induce a fusion reaction in ultra-dense deuterium. It's not much, it's under very controlled conditions, it's indirectly observed, and it's not been replicated in other labs yet. But this is how it starts. (Grokked from Karl Schroeder)
A new book on the history of DARPA. It's the ever present question of how far should science go, and just because we can shouldn't mean that we do. Then there's the opposite Cold War mentality of "if we don't the other side will."
"According to a source briefed by US officials about Friday's announcement, the new cap-and-trade program will cover 'the lion's share of China's emissions.'" Another domino falls. Well, at least President Obama's leadership helps convince other countries to do what's right, even if it has little effect on our Congress. (Grokked from Dan)
John Scalzi on the John Boehner stepping down. John Boehner was a politician, I don't agree with many of his positions, but at least he knew how work should get done. He just thought he would be able to harness the energy of the tea party and channel it, not understanding those new congressmen had no intension of getting in line. He was also hampered by having one of the best deal making levers being no longer available (ear marks). However in both of his terms as speaker (the gavel passed from him to Pelosi and then back to him) the Congress was known for it's "do nothing" functioning. The record run of CRs started in his tenure, and it continued into his second term. But we all know that whomever comes next is going to be worse. Even if a moderate is able to get the votes, the lunatic wing of the party feels they won a victory in forcing Boehner out. They're now emboldened and will fight even harder. It's the fruition of the Ronald Reagan compromise (of bringing the social conservatives into the voting pool and for the GOP).
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