Daily Blend: 05/06/13

Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski

I’m too bored/lazy/busy reading/excited about tomorrow/tired from “work” to blog much, so here’re some links.

US Air Force officer ^[pictured] in charge of responding to sexual assaults arrested for drunken sexual assault, underlines the US Military’s generally appalling handling of sex crimes.

“Good Riddance: Fox Cancels Long-Running, Drug War-Glorifying, Abuse-Excusing Reality Series COPS”
(via @AndrewKirell; RT: @radleybalko)

Those who slime together, stay together: Anti-Freethought Blogs/Atheism Plus hater encourages Westboro Baptist Church to picket upcoming Women in Secularism conference.
(via Pharyngula)

And finally, how much do you know about science and religion? (I scored in the 15^th and 13^th percentiles, respectively. Which is probably more of an implicit condemnation of the US educational system than anything else.)
(via Bad Astronomy)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

This Week in Creativitas: 05/04/13

Below are links to new, revised and updated works over at my art blog, Creativitas.

SITE: I changed my file hosting service from FileDen to Google Drive … and then to Dropbox. Seems to work dandy for now.

UPDATED: ‘Climax’ – Re-recorded and remixed with improved instrument sounds (especially for brass), added tubular bells, and made various minor edits.

UPDATED: ‘A Morning by the Sea’ – Re-recorded and remixed (again) with improved panning.

Remember, folk: Feedback feeds me. (Hence the name.)

Doggycide Roundup: 05/04/13

Crystal Falls, CA (04/14/13): Highway Patrol officer approaches a home, then immediately shoots & kills Osa the rottweiler when she allegedly “lunge[s] at his legs”. Includes a blatant lie by a Highway Patrol spox about how a dog wouldn’t be incapacitated when Tased or pepper-sprayed.
(via Dogs Shot by Police | Facebook)

Toledo, OH (04/22/13): Police shoot & kill a family bulldog after it escapes its chain and bites four assholes who were allegedly throwing bricks at him in his yard.
(via Dogs Shot by Police | Facebook)

San Lorenzo, CA (04/27/13): Deputies searching for a suspect approach a home, then immediately shoot three pitbulls that allegedly “c[a]me at the[m]”, killing one immediately and one later; animal control finished off the third. Family says dogs had never attacked anyone before.
(via Dogs Shot by Police | Facebook)

Statistics:
Shootings: 3 · Victims: 5 · Deceased: 5 · Survivors: 0 · Power Breeds* (dogs stereotypically maligned as “aggressive”: pitbulls, rottweilers, dobermans, etc.): 5

Study: Conservatives actively prefer wasteful tribalism

I neglected to blog about this when I first heard about it earlier this week, but an interesting and revealing (if not entirely surprising) new study seems to confirm that not only do more hardline conservatives care little about preserving the environment, they’ll actively go for the more wasteful and inefficient route in order to spite ’em some tree-huggerin’ librulz, even if it means paying more out of their own pocket for it:

A study out today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined attitudes about energy efficiency in liberals and conservatives, and found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them. The researchers first quizzed participants on how much they value various benefits of energy efficiency, including reducing carbon emissions, reducing foreign oil dependence, and reducing how much consumers pay for energy; cutting emissions appealed to conservatives the least.

The study then presented participants with a real-world choice: With a fixed amount of money in their wallet, respondents had to "buy" either an old-school light bulb or an efficient compact florescent bulb (CFL), the same kind Bachmann railed against. Both bulbs were labeled with basic hard data on their energy use, but without a translation of that into climate pros and cons. When the bulbs cost the same, and even when the CFL cost more, conservatives and liberals were equally likely to buy the efficient bulb. But slap a message on the CFL's packaging that says "Protect the Environment," and "we saw a significant drop-off in more politically moderates and conservatives choosing that option," said study author Dena Gromet, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

[…]

Gromet said she never expected the green message to motivate conservatives, but was surprised to find that it could in fact repel them from making a purchase even while they found other aspects, like saving cash on their power bills, attractive. The reason, she thinks, is that given the political polarization of the climate change debate, environmental activism is so frowned upon by those the right that they'll do anything to keep themselves distanced from it.

Easter Bunny: Origins

Researchers have finally identified the birthplace of the Easter Bunny:

(What? A slow blogging day, you say? How dare you.)

(via @EmergencyPuppy)

Rhode Island passes same-sex marriage

And Li’l Rhody makes ten (for now):

Capping a battle that began 16 years ago, the Rhode Island House of Representatives voted 56 to 15 Thursday to pass legislation to legalize same-sex marriage.

[…]

With the bills headed to the south steps of the State House for a public signing by Governor Chafee, Rhode Island joins its five New England neighbors in legalizing same-sex marriage and becomes the 10th state in the nation to do so.

My upcoming weekend plans now include making a beat from all the exploding heads on the homophobic Right. How about you?

(via @breakingpol; RT: @BreakingNews)

Daily Blend: 05/01/13

Kiera Wilmot

How the hell can it be this hot this early in the year? This can’t bode well.

Animal liberation activists in Milan, Italy, heroically sabotage years’ worth of mental health research by releasing scared and helpless lab animals that cannot survive on their own.
(via Pharyngula)

Who made the “bad choices” here: the model high-schooler ^[pictured] who created a tiny pop in a bottle by mixing chemicals in an experiment* (To be fair, not generally a good [or safe] idea unless you know what you’re doing, which it didn’t sound like she did), or the dumbass school and police officials who got her expelled, arrested and are dragging her to court for “possession/discharge of a weapon”?
(via @radleybalko)

• Better yet: The school then respond to criticism by declaring that “there are consequences to actions”. Indeed, and those consequences are that students will refrain from ever exhibiting any curiosity or scientific interest at Florida’s Bartow High School in order to avoid violating their ridiculous zero-tolerance policy.
  (via Pharyngula)

Wait, hydrogen peroxide doesn’t work? Dammit, Cracked, stop exploding my beliefs.

And finally, happy decaversary to MythBusting! Even though I only started watching in 2005 (“Steel Toe-Cap Amputation, Bottle Rocket Blast-Off”)
(via @MythBusters; RT: @JamieNoTweet)

Justice Dept. to appeal FDA order on morning-after pill

Less than a month after a federal judge tried to rectify the US government’s pointless mucking by striking down age restrictions on the morning-after pill, the meddlesome fools are at it again:

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it would appeal a federal judge’s order to make the most common morning-after contraceptive available without a prescription for girls and women of all ages.

The announcement came a day after the Food and Drug Administration said that one well-known morning-after pill, Plan B One-Step, would be made available without a prescription for girls as young as 15 — instead of only to girls ages 17 and over, as has been the case.

The Justice Department’s action will not affect that F.D.A. decision. Rather, the department is seeking to overturn a much broader order by the judge that removed restrictions for all ages and for generic versions of the pill, not just Plan B One-Step.

This is ridiculous. The FDA first advised that the pill should be made available for all ages in 2011 after declaring it safe and effective. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apparently took exception this, as she then overruled the FDA because “the pill had not been studied for safety in girls as young as 11”. Not yet clear is why Sebelius apparently finds fault with the findings from the government branch strictly dedicated to studying and certifying the safety of ingestible substances, nor why a pill that has no serious or lasting side-effects would somehow be perfectly safe for 15-year-olds but not 11-year-olds, nor why a drug that’s already been in use around the world for years with zero reported casualties of any kind suddenly requires further testing before we can finally be certain of its safety.

There’s a fine line between security-conscious pedantry and playing politics under the guise of medical rigor. Does anyone else detect a whiff of ideological resistance, here?

(via @BreakingNews)

Same-sex marriage sweeps across three more Brazilian states

Though the Brazilian government already allows same-sex couples to marry through a two-step process that involves entering a “stable union” and then petitioning a judge, a rapidly growing number of states are doing away with the needless complication:

Yesterday, marriage continued moving forward in Brazil when the Corregedor Geral de Justiça in two additional states - Paraíba and Santa Catarina (Articles in Portuguese) - authorized marriages between same-sex couples. Now, fourteen of the 27 jursidictions in Brazil (13 states and the Federal District) have approved the freedom to marry. Earlier this month, Rio de Janeiro and Rondônia saw similar developments.

[…]

In these states (and the federal district), couples can marry in Brazil without the two-step process: Alagoas (December 2011), Sergipe (July 2012), Espíritu Santo (August 2012), Bahía (November 2012), the Brazilian Federal District (December 2012), Piauí (December 2012), São Paulo (December 2012), Ceará (March 2013), Paraná (March 2013), Mato Grosso do Sul (April 2013), Rio de Janeiro (April 2013), Rondônia (April 2013), and now Paraíba and Santa Catarina (April 2013).

Now, nearly 60% of the population of Brazil live in states where same-sex couples can marry without the two-step process.

An increasingly large part of the rest of the world is looking at you, “Land of the Free”.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Vox Day: Women should rely on daddy to choose their husbands

Our ol’ pal Theodore “Vox Day” Beale, who’s never encountered a form of misogyny he didn’t take to and spin as a means of preserving (his grotesque ideal of) society, has a suggestion for stripping women of their most basic autonomy:

Who Nose asks a pertinent question:

"If you want to understand why women are not permitted serve in Church leadership, and why human societies do not survive more than a few generations of young women being permitted to choose their own spouses"

It begs the question: Who ought to choose their spouses?

The Church?
The Father?
The Mother?
The State?

The question is further begged: What kind of law would need to be passed to enforce the choosing of a spouse.

Finally, another question is begged: What would you do with the 99% of women who responded to the suggestion or the law with, "F*ck Off"?

1. The Father, with the advice of the Mother.
2. No law is necessary. Simply informing their daughter that a woman who is capable of choosing her own spouse is clearly also capable of paying for her own college education and supporting her own lifestyle decisions will suffice for most parents. If a woman is independent enough to insist on paying her own way in order to pursue a career, she's probably not wife-and-mother material anyhow and would likely end up a reproductive dead end regardless the options she is afforded. We can always hope that instead of children, such a woman will contribute some revolutionary Powerpoint slideshows to society, produce a cure for cancer, or introduce some truly ground-breaking HR policies that will change the world for the better.
3. I would simply wish them the best of fortune in their future endeavors. But the number won't be anywhere nearly that high because women are, first and foremost, the practical sex.

Daily Blend: 04/29/13

James McCormick

Canada is apparently eager to show that it can pass horrible and repressive laws in the name of “national security”, too.
(via @ioerror; RT: @ggreenwald)

A win for reality: James McCormick ^[pictured], who made millions by selling completely useless “dowsing rod”-style bomb detectors, is finally convicted of fraud (after hundreds have already perished).

LGBT history milestone: NBA center Jason Collins becomes first active US big-league sports player to come out as gay.

And finally, Glenn Beck tragically wins wrong kind of Darwin award.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Wales measles epidemic traced to antivaccination lunacy

It looks like the antivaccination movement has yet another cause to celebrate:

More than 800 people have been diagnosed with measles in Swansea[, Wales] in this recent outbreak. People are lining up to get their vaccinations, and a campaign has been started to get more people vaccinated, which is a good thing; I just hope it’s in time. But with so many people contracting the illness, serious repercussions are almost inevitable.

Wales has had low Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccination rates for some time … since about 1998, in fact, when Andrew Wakefield published his bogus study in the Lancet falsely linking the MMR vaccine to autism.

Once again, he, Jenny McCarthy and the various Orwellianly-named vaccine “safety” groups out there must be ever so proud.