22 August, 2015

Link Dump (Odds 'n' Ends)

Spot the Photoshop: Super PAC for ¡Jeb! Bush tweets supporters.


Hunters in New Zealand asked to participate in cull of problematic bird-species.  Apologise after they accidentally kill similar-looking critically endangered species instead.

Ars Technica: New data uncovers the surprising predictability of Android lock patterns

Desperately insane pumping of historic groundwater in California causing massive subsidence in the San Joaquin Valley, with some locations sinking nearly two inches a month.

1000 square miles opened up to new 'fracking' in England, all in the North & Midlands, far away from Tory strongholds in the Southeast.

Clickbait: 56 Delightful Victorian Slang Terms You Should Be Using

Chelsea Manning convicted of ridiculous new charges; Spared indefinite solitary confinement.

Extroverts prefer flat surroundings, compared to mountains & wooded areas for introverts.

Jeremy Corbyn in the '80's on his scruffy appearance:


Morrissey accuses Obama of being 'probably white inside', because...Morrissey.

Shocking revelation from the BBC: Stroke 'more likely' with long hours.  No...never !

Humans 'super predators'; Destroying too many large adult animals as prey.

Still more potential victims coming forth with accusations of sexual assault against Bill Cosby.

China lying about its unemployment-rate ?

A killswitch in Windows 10 for 'unauthorised' hardware and pirated games ?


Some Rare Good News ?

China's emissions from coal overestimated, due to the poor quality of the coal in use.

New sources of helium found !  Unfortunately, mostly in the same country that sold off its strategic reserves of helium at bargain-basement-prices for largely ideological reasons.

BBC: UK embassy in Tehran to reopen after thaw in British-Iranian relations

Department of Justice in the US asserts the obvious: That it is legal to sleep outside in public places.  Can it convince cities/counties against continuing to criminalise homelessness ?*

BBC: Carbon nanofibres made from CO2 in the air


Link between balance of vaginal bacteria and premature births.

Radley Balko on the limited benefits of body-cameras for police.

Good thing the GOP chose this particular moment to stop hordes of new illegal immigrants from flooding the US:


Official in Maryland suggests loosening laws on lead-paint, based upon fanciful and baseless idea that 'a mother could just put a lead fishing weight in her child's mouth, then take the child in for testing and a landlord would be liable for providing the child with housing until the age of 18'.

The death of lol at the hands of haha & emojis.

Jeb Bush: 'Taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal.'

Should the NHS be prescribing gluten-free pizzas ?

Sinkhole that swallowed man in his sleep re-opens two years later.

The New Republic on the PRC's theft of GMO corn-seeds from the US.  On the one hand, China stealing from the US; On the other, patenting genes for profit...

2015 likely to be hottest year on record.

Former online propagandist for the Kremlin, who fought to expose their efforts, gets nominal one rouble in damages from Russian court.

Donald Trump in photoshoot with bald eagle in Manhattan, because...why the hell not ?


Radio-host in Iowa proposes making illegal immigrants 'property of the state' and forcing them into 'compelled labor';  When faced with accusation this sounds like slavery, responds 'Well, what's wrong with slavery?'

Sounds absurd, right ?  Meanwhile, former inmates in Nashville, TN allege private jail-company forced them to work for free, and personally profited from their labour.

Drug-resistant headlice !

A transparent swimmingpool suspended between the tops of two 10-storey buildings...What could possibly go wrong ?

Speaking of vertigo: Canadian company gets patent for 20-kilometre-high space elevator.

Air-pollution in parts of China as bad as smoking forty cigarettes a day.


George Osborne with his parents at his twenty-first birthday-party, because...I dunno, we're supposed to be shocked he's posh or something ?  From somewhere on Twitter.

The Federalist** on the kneejerk Bill O'Reilly-originated 'Kates's Law'.

Donald Trump on letting corporations determine their own tax-rates, be that 'ten percent' or 'nothing'.

Daily Kos: James O'Keefe Tries to Entrap Hillary, Fails Spectacularly

Finland latest to experiment with basic income in place of traditional welfare (or...).

The Guardian on paid toilet-apps and the continuing privatisation of basic human resources.

And finally, via Vox, via Slate, what the poster on YouTube described five years ago (more simply than they) as 'Serious Seinfeld':



* The older I get, the less and less sympathy I have for so-called 'States' rights', which more often than not, seem to simply enable the worst behaviour by the worst actors, in the worst corners of the so-called 'United States.'

** Yes, that Kevin Ring apparently

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