[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- Sonoluminescence: When sound makes light
- [io9]
Under certain circumstances, sound waves can generate light. Find out which circumstances, explore the debate about how the phenomenon works, and learn how to make your own sonoluminescence generator.
[Necessary first step in creating working model of sonic screwdriver? You decide! -L]
- Schrodinger’s cat survived the
- [I Can Has Cheezburger]
- Screenwriter John August Ponders the Bechdel Test
- [Women & Hollywood]
Screenwriter John August (Go, Titan AE, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) came across this new video that’s gone viral about how few films really pass the Bechdel Test and he looked at the films he has written and it gave him pause.
- Tough Stuff — The Decider's confession
- [Hullabaloo - Digby]
So our last president confessed to being a war criminal and said he'd do it again. Gosh, that sure makes me proud to be an American, how about you?
<blockquote>George W. Bush's casual acknowledgment Wednesday that he had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded — and would do it again — has horrified some former military and intelligence officials who argue that the former president doesn't seem to understand the gravity of what he is admitting.
Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is "unequivocably torture", said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years.</blockquote>
…Sometimes I worry that all the attention to the psychopathy of Dick Cheney has diminished the malevolent nature of George W. Bush. He was there and he enthusiastically signed off on all of it, proud to be the bold decider. I'm quite sure that in his mind these were among the best moments of his presidency.
- A Legislative Agenda That Only A Giant 19th Century Racist Could Love
- [Pandagon - Jesse Taylor]
Digby leads us to this Powerline post, in which one of them (are they still claiming to be lawyers?) theorizes that we should get rid of birthright citizenship because seriously, fuck those guys, that’s why. [...]
One of the basic presumptions in international law is against the statelessness of persons. It’s very bad thing when someone is born without a national affiliation, because it essentially means they’re wandering around with no national legal protection. When bad things happen (like, say, the soldiers of a given nation shooting you in the head four times), you’re left with no national protection and no place to call home.
The main reason we have birthright citizenship in the United States? Slavery. We had a rather large class of people who were all of a sudden on American soil with no identifiable national identity and no attachment to any country except the one they were born in. Without birthright citizenship, every slave in the United States would have just been a wandering, stateless soul with no home country and no real way to leave America and find a home. Of course, for many modern conservatives, that would have just been former slaves’ wake up call that they needed to start taking the initiative for themselves and stop relying on Constitutional handouts and the willing teat of the federal government, those lazy bastards.
So, is birthright citizenship an anachronism? Only if you’re a giant xenophobic dickhead. [...] The Powerline Proposal also assumes that you can determine citizenship by subsequent actions of the parents, which is just awesomely presumptuous – you have more of a claim to American citizenship if you travel back and forth between the US and Turkey, but less if your parents decide to settle down in one non-American place. You have more of a claim if you’re doing something pro-American, and less of a claim if GOP donors don’t particularly approve of your political stances.
[Emphasis mine. -L]
- PG&E Commits Facebook Identity Theft for Prop 16
- [Calitics]
[Wow. Seriously. Wow. Seriously? -L]
Several weeks ago, I noticed that one of my friends on Facebook was a "fan" of Proposition 16 – PG&E's Monopoly Protection Act that is easily the worst measure on the June ballot. After I chewed him out for it, he expressed shock to even be on that page. Apparently, PG&E had added him on as a supporter without his consent. Today, just as the Prop 16 campaign boasted that it now has 50,000 "fans" on Facebook, I received a press release from the Sunrise Center in Marin County – who complained that some of their own staffers (who are working hard to defeat Prop 16) have also been added as "fans." Besides exposing a serious loophole in Facebook's privacy features, [...]
Attorney General Jerry Brown should consider pressing criminal charges against PG&E, who appears to have committed identity theft. Ironically, Facebook's former Chief Privacy Officer — Chris Kelly — is running to replace Brown in next week's election.
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