Link dump II: Cheerful and/or interesting

And hey! I had more of these than of the grumpy kind!

• The 10 weirdest physics facts, from relativity to quantum physics
  
  
• Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010: [National Geographic] Editors' Picks -- why let physics have all the fun?
  
  
• The Truth Wears Off -- Is there something wrong with the scientific method? Talk about weird!! (!!)
  
  
• Leave Your Tasks Unfinished to Maintain Momentum and Avoid Mental Blocks -- counterintuitive at first glance, but spiff!
  
  
• The prettiest woodpile I've ever seen -- neat.
  
  
• The Human Incubator -- human contact can trump high technology.
  
  
• Turbine-free wind power -- a neat alternative in development
  
  
• Poetic sensitivities -- the limits of perception expressed in everyday terms (accidental poetry).
  
  
• Senate Passes 9/11 First Responders Health Care Bill -- ok, this was a while ago, but good to celebrate rare shows of sanity.
  
  
• Now We're Talking -- the argument you never hear: why the retirement age should be lowered, not raised. Atrios echoes and extends the idea here.
  
  
• Also too rarely seen: Muslim and Christian, Egyptians stand together against violence (this is before the current political unrest)
  
  
• Also uplifting: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
  
  
• Don't Touch My Junk! Jesse Ventura Sues The TSA -- he might be just the guy to press this issue.
  
  
• Another dumb idea gets its comeuppance: Dubai's artificial islands "sinking"
  
  
• Totally inspired (and addictive) resource: Wikipedia's List of common misconceptions, from sports to religion and everything else.
  
  
• The Unspeakable, in Its Jammies -- how we deal with difficult language in literature (as in the recent Huck Finn controversy), and a touching account of discussing the matter with kids.
  
  
• Chop, Fry, Boil: Eating for One, or 6 Billion -- three basic approaches to cooking can do everything you need.
  
  
• Characters from The Wire broken down by appropriate D&D alignment -- soooo right.
  
  
• Brimming with Holiday Spirit -- Tom Tomorrow gets to the heart of why worry about Assaults on the Holidays are absurd...
  
  
• The Fun Theory -- can making things fun help people do the right thing? Dunno, but these little demonstrations make me pretty happy.
  
  
• My Blackberry is not working -- pure British sketch silliness.
  

Link dump: Interesting and cheerful edition

Apparently my ability to blog is a bit broken. Or at least constipated, to judge from all the tabs I pile up with good intentions. Anyway, enough with the grumpy! Let's have some cheeful and interesting stuff from the last week or two!

• Purely uplifting (whether silly or sublime):
  
  
  1. If only we had Photoshop for the world around us, imagine how we could fix things! heh.
     
     
  2. Remember that campaign "It Gets Better"? Here's how you can make sure that happens. Always good to be reminded of little things you can do right around you.
     
     
  3. While you're at it, save your slivers of soap to help prevent disease around the world.
     
     
  4. Pentagon study: Gays could serve with no harm. Seems clear to me, but I didn't expect such a clear response, nor such a clear call to action to follow.
     
     
  5. Yay! Evidence that some hospitals, at least, are putting recent infection-prevention results into practice. Cultural change is slow, but this stuff is critical, before we're all overrun with drug-resistant bugs!
  
  
• Fascinating:
  
  
  1. Top 20 miscroscope photos of 2010 -- gorgeous as design, interesting as science.
     
     
  2. A chat with the first autistic Presidential appointee (to the National Council on Disability) reveals some interesting differences of perspective on how to deal with autistic folks in particular and the disabled in general.
     
     
  3. 311 service works -- not only on specific problems, but helping to identify wider neighborhood issues, seasonal patterns, and other things that help cities run themselves.
     
     
  4. A translation of the Lord's Prayer from the Arameic that may not sound that familiar -- some real insights there into what Jesus may have been all about!

     Create in me a divine cooperation: from
     many selves, one voice, one action.

  5. Also mind-blowing: evidence that what we're *about to experience* affects us now. Can we see the future? (or are our scientific methods really flawed?)
     
     
  6. Man makes a functional and beautiful living space in absolutely tiny outside dimensions, giving hope that we could live smarter and more economically without feeling caged...
  
  
• Laced with schadenfreude:
  
  
  1. House Dems press GOP reps to abandon their federal health benefits based on the same principles underlying their opposition to health care reform.
     
     
  2. So, when did you choose to be straight? You know, if it's a choice?
     
     
  3. The Onion: 20,000 Sacrificed In Annual Blood Offering To Corporate America (seems like more over the last couple of years...)
     
     
  
  

Link dump, several themes

I know that this stuff would be better in smaller installments, but the combination of general time-crunch with lingering jet-lag is totally killing my blogging time. Better a heap than never.

Grumpy news

• U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It whee
  
  
• FBI probes were improper, Justice says -- surprise! the FBI used 9/11 as an excuse to add liberal activists to terrorist watch lists. How long ago do the 1960s feel now?? Civil disobediance still scares The Man inordinately...
  
  
• Obama can learn from 'Godfather' -- being President should mean powers you can use. Of course, the author presumes that this oversight is accidental, rather than a fundamental feature of Obama's character; I think he likes to be a facilitator, not directly leverage action. Frustrating to watch!
  
  
• The wrong way to answer Ms. Velma Hart -- more on the President's falling short
  
  
• Do Not Pity the Democrats -- this takes the grim up a notch, pointing out that partisan politics are rather dwarfed by the growing and inappropriate power of corporations in modern America. A call to local organizing, whether for financial control, political reform, or just to put some counterweights out there against the monolithic oligarchy that is increasingly blind to the public at large.
  
  
• In the nonpolitical realm, 'Halfalogue': Overheard cell-phone conversations are not only annoying but reduce our attention -- our ability to think and reason are actually more disrupted by half a conversation than by having both halves in our auditory space. Interesting.
  
  
• Which is the gay one? My feeling about Don't Ask, Don't Tell in a nutshell!

Parenting bits

• Things That Never Happen -- putting the frequency of things like child abductions into perspective:

  The very definition of news is "something that almost never happens."

• Let Adults Hang Out at the Playground (Even if They Don't Have Kids) -- laws against this gut the meaning of "neighborhood"...
  
  
• related: 5 Worries Parents Should Drop, And 5 They Shouldn't
  
  
• Preschoolers use statistics to understand others -- spiffy bit of deduction there
  
  
• Fostering Your Toddler's Independent Play -- tips on gradual weaning from purely parent-led games; more here.
  
  
• Homeroom Security: a book about the insanity of zero-tolerance classroom policies, something I expect to encounter in a few years
  
  
• “What do you saay…?” Nooo Thanks! -- alternative ways to teach children polite behavior (like modelling!!)
  
  
• St. Louis' newish City Museum looks so creative and fantastical that it makes me want to invent an excuse to go back there! I wanna play too!!
  

Silliness and thoughtfulness

• I had *no* idea that the Miss Universe pageant featured an entry of extravagent national costumes, but it does, and these image collections, complete with snarky commentary, just cracked me up!!
  
  
• Dancing in the movies -- a montage that just makes you want to get out there and move! joyous.
  
  
• Repairing a Sexist Cartoon -- both frustrating and hilarious, in several takes.
  
  
• how to be alone -- a quiet video on making peace with solitude.
  
  
• Real Live Preacher offers Gentle Suggestions for Doubting Christians, nice indeed.
  
  

Quote of the day

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

– G. K. Chesterton

(via A Mindful Life)

Tuesday round-up (= link-dump)

• A couple weeks old: Ohio Pastors File IRS Complaints Over C Street House. Weird Christian "frat house" set-up may be a taxable rent-subsidy.
  
  
• Don't Mess With Texas (Mortgages, That Is) -- they actually regulated mortgages and home equity loans, and thus avoided the worst disasters of the last couple of years. Maybe the rest of the country could learn something!
  
  
• On Flexing Your Rights. Or at Least Meagerly Trying to Hold on to Them. Advice on dealing with cops always recommends calm and courtesy -- good on a practical front, but seems to imply that the absence of meekness is an opening for aggression, as evidenced by the crazy story here of police tazing a pregnant woman on a routine traffic stop...
  
  
• When did the Senate become such a lonely, cynical place?

  "My father used to quote it: `The Senate allows you two years as a statesman, two years as a politician, and two years as a demagogue.' " He gave me a wistful look right then, and proceeded to say exactly what I’d been thinking. "And that’s actually changed. You’re now a demagogue the full six years."

  Hope we can find a way to salvage the institution.
  
  
• The Bias of Veteran Journalists

  The journalists at the press conference didn't have a bias as the term is normally used; that is, I didn't get the sense that they were inherently for or against the company or its product. They just appeared to think they knew the subject well enough, or had a set enough idea in their heads as to what this kind of story was about, that they pursued only the lines of questioning necessary to fill in the blanks of that presumed story line.

  If it's bad for product reviews, imagine what it does to ones ability to develop an understanding of the political landscape, policy, and the future of both!
  
  
• Robert Reich argues Why More Immigrants Are An Answer to the Coming Boomer Entitlement Mess. Not sure that his numbers game will convince the fundamentally xenophobic, but it's a good perspective for the rest of us.
  
  
• Think Before You Speak, a great video campaign to get kids out of the habit of using "so gay" as the ultimate put-down for things uncool. Worth watching all of the initial vids.
  [Someday, maybe we can take on the whole late-night talkshow host vocabulary, of calling people "pussy" and "douchebag" and the like, for similar reasons. But the urgency is almost certainly greater on this chosen front.]
  
  
• Just fun: Music video with a whole school as the instrument. Video and sound-mixing are a realm in which today's kids have a whole different fluency than do the middle-aged set, however computer savvy.
  
  
• Just mind-bending: This is not a spiral. Say, wha...?!

Still room to be boggled

I thought that the Bush Administration had already maxed my capacity for amazement and outrage, but these overtly religious military reports just blow my mind all over again. Bush is, I suppose, welcome to his feeling that he's on a Mission From God, but our government needs to keep a clearer head in its affairs!

Monkey see...

Um, can't completely decide whether to be amused or creeped out by this hell-and-brimstone babble sermon given by a toddler. It seemed to inspire the congregation, anyway...

Poem of the day/week

the believer considers
----------------------------------

the glorious day
the glorious vision

sometimes joy floats
on a dark sea
white flecks of foam

hopelessness was easier
the comfort of slow decay
nothing required
a calm gentility
in the gathering dust

the promise - a service
in this world and the next
all I wanted was to sleep
close my eyes a little
there is always something to do

if no one comes to the door
in the middle of the night
seeking attar of roses
will I be relieved?

we could wrap ourselves
in the beauty of it all
and disappear
a mountainside, a forest retreat
breathing prayer words
to the moon and stars

the world refuses to fail
is not past saving
the wind stirs the leaves
at my door
and pulls at my sleeve

- Kim Hodges

(via rec.arts.poems, more than a decade ago, and it's stuck with me every since)

Passing

This year the whirl of life feels a little too much, and the possibilities of Lent are lost to me in the wind. Was grateful for this little poem that captures a good sense of balance . . .

When your organization is run by wizened old men

Of course this opinion is not universal in the Catholic Church, but it's hardly a shocking departure either:

That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and from the nature of girls: true universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls.

This from an arbiter of "truth." Sigh.

Disillusioning

The biggest shock to me of this story wasn't that Public Radio was encouraging folks to support the Salvation Army, it was that what I've always considered an innocuous bedrock organization (the SA) has transformed itself into an intolerant agent of the Christian Right, even in the context of its federally funded social services operations. In fact, the quotes sound like it's a bit of an agent of Big Brother, tracking down personal information on the habits and affiliations of all its employees and ousting those who don't conform. Creepy!

Ben Franklin is rolling in his grave

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks the Constitution needs to be amended to aline with God's standards, in this case on abortion and gay marriage. I'm sure 19th-century slaveholders would have agreed with him, as do such folks as the Taliban and other religious nuts around the world. More signs that the right has institutionalized a brainwashed religiosity...

You're not speaking for me

An interesting example here of how the leadership of the evangelical movement is often more radical (or less well adapted to reality) than the bulk of actual followers, how little they seem to realize it (as opposed to, say, the Catholic Church, which began banging its head against the wall years ago), and how foolish they can look as a result.

Same as the old boss

Pope Benedict pronounces homosexuality a barrier to world peace. (It's all those nuclear gay families with their adopted kids that really wreck the place!) sigh.

(via Bitch, Ph.D.)

Depressing in several ways

I can hardly comment on this story about the religious transformation of the air force academy, but feel it should be pointed out. It's wrong on so many levels -- against the history and philosophy of our country, tending to exclude or marginalize talented recruits, and helping support the worst kind of jingoism and crusading sentiment among our soldiers stationed abroad. Just the picture of the church/chapel gives me the shivers!

Never let facts get in the way!

There goes another right-winger, claiming that our nation's Founders were all Bible-beaters, quite in contradiction to everything we know about the actual men involved. There's no threat that Christianity is about to vanish, kids; keeping it out of governmental affairs, however, is a longstanding philosophical stance.

Three quick links

Combination of contractor craziness with family visitors means I can barely keep my day in line, so no time to give these what they deserve:

• Want to avoid flu? Then here are tips on how to wash your hands -- you're probably doing it too quickly...
  (via boing boing)
  
  
• This year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics says a free market isn't perfect, and gives some examples. US papers pretend the whole thing didn't happen...
  
  
• Those who think that without Christianity (or perhaps their other religion of choice) we'd all be savages might learn something from a recent study that shows that secular representations of goodness and justice are just as effective in eliciting "good" behavior as are overtly spiritual ones.

Wait, they *believe* this stuff?!

Some Republicans are finding themselves surprised by the sources of opposition to their screw-the-children stance on the SCHIP funding issue -- most recent is Catholics United, who frame it in a pro-life way:

"Building a true culture of life requires public policies that promote the welfare of the most vulnerable," said Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United. "At the heart of the Christian faith is a deep and abiding concern for the need of others. Pro-life Christians who serve in Congress should honor this commitment by supporting health care for poor children."

The basis for this argument could easily be seen as being merely Biblical compassion, except that that doesn't push the political buttons that invoking the term "pro-life" activates. Still, I suspect conservatives weren't expecting a challenge from the right, because they sometimes forget that there are people for whom such arguments are more than cant, representing deep guidelines for how life is to be lived . . .

Quote of the day

"Spirit" comes from the Latin word "to breathe." What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word "spiritual" that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. ... Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in the immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

– Carl Sagan,
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

(via A Mindful Life)

When you tilt your head just so...

Know how people are always talking about the "problem" that Democrats have with religious voters? (feh) Well, it's worth noting that Republicans have a serious problem with the secular vote.

In short, Republicans failed to be competitive among secular voters, while Democrats were at least competitive among regular churchgoers. And since the secular vote is roughly equal to the regular churchgoing vote, according to the last several national election exit polls, that means Republicans and their conservative base have a far bigger secular problem than their rivals have a religion problem.

Chew on that for a while!