Link Dump (Procrastination Edition)

Well, symmetry demands that we follow up the info-graf. of toddler-initiated shootings from the last linkdump with one for dogs, also from the Washington Post.

CNN: Persian Gulf heat: It may become too hot for humans to survive, study warns.  This, given the primary cause of said warming, is what we might call irony.  Bitter irony, but nonetheless.

New Scientist: Old rat brains rejuvenated and new neurons grown by asthma drug.

Well, if you say so...Birth order 'does not affect personality'.

Telegraph: International Space Station filled with germs, Nasa warns.

It seems the bugs like their new home in the unique environment that has experienced microgravity, space radiation, elevated carbon dioxide and continuous occupation by humans for nearly 15 years.

An analysis of dust collected from the artificial satellite found that Actinobacteria - a type of bacteria associated with human skin - made up a larger proportion of the microbial community in the ISS.

Washington Post: In 1983 ‘war scare,’ Soviet leadership feared nuclear surprise attack by U.S.  One might hope, in vain, that the modern warmongering imbecilic leaders of NATO would learn from relatively recent history...

The phrase 'politically correct' is now considered a 'microagression' apparently...

Guardian: Jeremy Clarkson: Argentinian court orders Top Gear case to be reopened.  For the horrendous crime of changing a licence-plate illegally, after Argentine mobs used said licence-plate as justification for threatening and attacking the TG crew.  FFS.

Raw Story revisits the claims that George W Bush went AWOL from the National Guard, a story ignored by the US media since Dan Rather was thrown under a bus in 2004.

Guardian: Cisa amendment would allow US to jail foreigners for crimes committed abroad.  No big government here, no sireee.

In what should be the bleeding fucking obvious: Opticians warn: don't share your coloured contact lenses.

AmericaBlog: Antioxidants aid cancer cells in metastasizing, research shows.  Awesome...

Guardian: Police seek powers to access browsing history of UK computer users.  Of course they do...

LiveScience: Crocodiles Might Literally Sleep With One Eye Open.  Scary enough, but it's the potential consequences for the mechanics of the brain that are truly fascinating.

Lov-e-ly...Vice News: Indonesia's Fires Are Emitting More Carbon Pollution Than the Entire US Economy.  Intentionally set forestfires* that is...

Guardian: Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe awarded 'China's Nobel peace prize'.  And...Mugabe then rejected it, for the understandable reason that it apparently has no actual link to the Chinese (PRC) govt.

Inquisitr: Drinking Coffee While Driving: Police Pull Over Woman For Driving And Drinking Coffee.



'Love and Sex with Robots conference cancelled for fear people would have sex with robots'

TBogg/RawStory: NRA pushing new bill to legalize silencers — to protect hunters ears.  Huh, and suppressors on average cost how much versus earmuffs, one wonders...

Independent: Saudi prince arrested in Lebanon trying to smuggle two tonnes of amphetamine pills out of the country by private jet.  Nooo, never......

Breitbart: WORLD’S FIRST LESBIAN BISHOP CALLS FOR CHURCH TO REMOVE CROSSES, TO INSTALL MUSLIM PRAYER SPACE/.  All-CAPS headline, natch.

MSNBC: James O’Keefe’s Clinton sting video may backfire.  I haz a sad.

Newsweek: U.N. Overwhelmingly Votes Against U.S. Embargo of Cuba for 24th Year.  The two votes against ?  Surprise, surprise: The US & Israel...

Guardian: NHS hospital to offer food parcels to patients at risk of malnutrition.  Ah, Austerity, what cost ?

No shit...WaPo: Good design causes the brain to pay more attention to news stories.  As opposed to sites filled with those intrusive ads, fake headlines, miscellaneous clickbait, pages that take forever to load with all the third-party scripts, then crash the browser, and so forth...

Daily Beast: Ben Carson’s Stabbing Story Is Full of Holes.  And because younger Spongebrain Ben Carson is an even more effective alternative to Valium than present-day Spongebrain, here's the man who could be the future leader of the free world:

C'mon, ask yourself, has an attempted stabbing even seemed a more compelling reason to make a theocratic maniac man president ?

Donald Trump picks up a valuable endorsement...from Mike Tyson.

Boing Boing: Hawaii cop reportedly punched lesbian in face after seeing public kiss.

Guardian: US warns Britain: If you leave EU you face barriers to trading with America.  Empty threat, but I can see how the EU makes negotiating insane 'trade'-deals like TTIP easier to ram thru.

Mirror: Schoolgirl facing assault charges for throwing baby carrot at her teacher.  Don't suppose it will merit a scholarship to an A&M or an invite to visit Monsanto.

The 'school resource officer' (aka cop) who ripped a student out of her desk and flung her across the room, has been fired.  Always somewhat conflicted when paid bullies are held accountable for acting exactly according to their insanely militaristic training.  And we need police in schools why exactly ?

Foreign Policy: Russia’s Winning the Electronic War.


* I am dedicated** to normalising the rendering of compoundwords in English, even if the rest of the English-speaking world is in denial.  You think the long words in German are funny, really ?

** Well, somewhat, vaguely, kinda.  Intently but lazily perhaps.

Link Dump (Back to the Future Edition)

American exceptionalism, yeah !: People are getting shot by toddlers on a weekly basis this year.  Well, what other countries' toddlers can claim forty-three plus shootings a year ?  Denmark ?

But, hey the UK has much to be proud about also.  Such as becoming the first country to spark an investigation by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, over possible violations of human-rights due to the Tories' vicious cuts.

IBT: Nearly 90% Of Those Killed By US Drones Were Not Intended Targets During Five-Month Span: Report.  Like the American public would care, even if the media bothered to report this shit...

“Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association,” the source told the Intercept. If “a drone strike kills more than one person, there is no guarantee that those persons deserved their fate … so it’s a phenomenal gamble.”

New York Times: For Offenders Who Can’t Pay, It’s a Pint of Blood or Jail Time.  No, literally...

So, the US apparently destroyed evidence at that hospital it bombed in Kunduz, Afghanistan.  By accident, of course...

Oh yeah, in case you didn't know, the FBI & NSA apparently have a habit of using 'Mohammed Raghead' as a placeholder for Muslim targets of surveillance.  Classy.

New York Times: What Could Raising Taxes on the 1% Do? Surprising Amounts.

Whadda shame, Jim Webb is dropping his (highly quixotic) bid for the Democratic nomination in the US.  Meanwhile, the candidate in second place for the Republican nomination, Spongebrain Ben Carson, takes his campaign so seriously, that he is suspending it for two weeks to concentrate on selling his book...

American Social Democrat Bernie Sanders to give speech on Democratic Socialism, despite apparently not understanding the term himself.  You.  Are.  Not.  Helping.  Bernie.  They're confused enough already.

Because the current greedhead leaders of the UK are completely and totally fucking insane... BBC: Xi Jinping to seal Hinkley Point nuclear power deal in UK.  In the name of, no, don't tell me...'energy security', right ?  Oh, and rate-payers are guaranteed to pay double the current rate of electricity into the bargain...  So glad UK voters didn't elect a bunch of commies and socialists in the last election...

Vox: Senate Democrats want to increase the smoking age to 21. That would save lives.  Uh, yeah, why not 42, or 84, or any other arbitrary number ?  Really think the idiotic restriction on people who in every other respect are considered adult, drinking prior to 21 has worked out that well ?  And why not prevent people from driving till their thirties, from owning a gun till they are in their forties ?  Raise the age of consent to 25 say ?  Why is a country that routinely tries children as adults in court, so insistent on telling actual adults what they can and can't do prior to a certain age ?

Daily Mail: Flossing your teeth can be a waste of time - and do more HARM than good, leading dental expert claims.

Deutsche Welle: Dutch website gains enough signatures for EU-Ukraine referendum.  A satirical website that is, threatening the ill-considered 'association agreement' between the EU & Ukraine.

Bloomberg: Insurrection Erupts at the Democratic National Committee.  DWS will get Hillary elected one way or another, and Hill's backer's on Wall Street will be sure to reward both.  The Democratic Party is just a rented vessel, whatever voters may think.  And with the GOP possibly slipping from its grasp, Wall Street is not giving the Dems their party back any time soon.

Daily Express: RHUBARB can save your life: Ingredient in plant kills half of cancer cells in 48 hours.

Vox: The case against otters: necrophiliac, serial-killing fur monsters of the sea.  Nice...

Telegraph: Feral pig caught eating cannabis refuses to give up his stash

Washington Post: Ebola virus can linger in semen of survivors for 9 months, study shows.  Uh, good to know.

Der Spiegel: World Cup Scandal: Germany Appears to Have Bought Right to Host 2006 Tournament.  Huh.

Guardian: Number of London's 'working poor' surges 70% in 10 years.

Well, nothing could possibly go wrong with this...New Scientist: Carbon nanotubes found in children’s lungs for the first time.

Guardian: Submissions to Theresa May’s child sex abuse inquiry accidentally deleted.  Whoops...How'd that happen ?

Daily Beast: Syria Rebels Plan Suicide Attacks on Russians.  Freedom-fighters and all that.

The Homs Liberation Movement—a division of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army—seems ready to use tactics associated with ISIS. “We will conduct martyrdom operations carried out by dissident officers,” al-Hourani said, using a euphemism for suicide attacks.

Though this may not be all that surprising. The Movement is an Islamist faction known to be a close military ally of the official al Qaeda franchise in Syria known as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Speaking of said conflict, the US & Russia are coordinating their presence in the air on some level, one would hope ?...

Independent: Babies born in the summer grow up to be taller and healthier, Cambridge University study finds.

Daily Mail: Thousands of religious prisoners in China had their livers, kidneys and corneas ripped out while they were ALIVE to sell to 'transplant tourists', claims new film.

(A heavily annotated version of) Mein Kampf finally returning to sale in Deutschland.

The Sheriff in Florida angry that the federal government is recalling one of his military-surplus armored personnel-carriers.  Claims that his officers will have to go on 'suicide-missions' and 'people will die' as a result.

Washington Post: Sleep study on modern-day hunter-gatherers dispels notion that we’re wired to need 8 hours a day.

Independent: Bookmakers 'refusing to take bets from successful gamblers'.

BBC: Old yeasts used by brewers to unearth the beers of yesteryear.

The lawmaker in Missouri pushing for a memorial to aborted fetuses... to be paid for by Planned Parenthood...

That newly unearthed multimillion-dollar foto of Billy the Kid...

...Well, and friends...

'Clock Kid' Ahmed Mohamed finally got that meeting at the White House with President Barack Obama*, having recently finished a world-tour that took him to Qatar, to Mecca, and to Sudan to 
meet with possible war-criminal Omar al-Bashir.  Then promptly announced that he is moving to Qatar for study...  Hopefully the end of a sorry saga that saw a fourteen-year-old manipulated for political purposes.**

That HR-Manager from New York who sued her own twelve-year-old nephew over an apparently wrist-breaking hug...lost, you may be happy to hear.  Or not, whadda I know ?

Time: Here’s Proof That the First Modern Humans Were Chinese.

Fusion: Cops are asking Ancestry.com and 23andMe for their customers’ DNA.

The Scotsman: Americans find Glasgow accent ‘Britain’s sexiest’.  To each his own, I guess.

So, there's a plan to put a monument to Martin Luther King at Stone Mountain in Georgia, and apparently...it isn't just the neo-confederates who object...

The Times: Billions are laundered in British banks (link may run into paywall).

And finally, you've probably heard that nudity is out at Playboy.***

Well, sometimes, less is more, no ?

* Though the White House kept the meeting brief, and seemed to downplay the affair.  Wonder why that might be ?

** We'll leave out by whom and to what ends perhaps...

*** Well, full nudity...in the print edition...in the United States that is.

Link Dump (Columbus Day Edition*)

Jeremy Corbyn stripped of 'Right Honourable' title after his 'snub' of the Privy Council.  He's devastated, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, here's some less humorous 'news' from the Telegraph regarding Corbyn and the IRA.

SF Weekly: Local Journalist Could Face 25 Year Prison Sentence for Defacing LA Times Website.  'Cos in today's world, if you fuck with corporations, you're a 'terrorist', and we have to make an example of you.

Politifact: Were more preschoolers shot and killed in 2013 than police officers?  Do you really need to ask ?

Guardian: Facebook paid £4,327 corporation tax despite £35m staff bonuses.

EFF: The Final Leaked TPP Text is All That We Feared.  Basically, good news for multinational corporations, bad news for everyone else.  But, hey we dodged that 120-year copyright...

Huffington Post: New Blood Test Helps ER Docs Rule Out A Heart Attack.

Daily Mail: Megyn Kelly's bloody tampon, a 'sexy Ebola victim' and a marijuana suit for your BABY: Femail reveals the most offensive costumes set to give you the creeps this Halloween.  No costume involving Syrian migrants though ?  Really ?  Well, there is always this tastelessness...

Mindblowing...New York Times: 2 Outside Reviews Say Cleveland Officer Acted Reasonably in Shooting Tamir Rice, 12.  Zooming right up to the kid and shooting him dead two seconds later, yeah, that's reasonable alright...

Related ?  Raw Story: Perception of time slows down for some white people when viewing a black face, study finds.

Meanwhile...in Florida...Orlando Weekly: Florida could pay you $200,000 for shooting someone and claiming self-defense.  So, the prosecution would have the burden of proof that you weren't threatened if you murder someone, and if they can't do so, they may have to cough up on your behalf big time.  Who's betting this bill won't pass in the legislature ?

Politico: Gallup gives up the horse race.  Might be a tad obvious, but kudos for the headline regardless.

RT: Micro-satellite to inspect if Americans did land on Moon.  Want to answer the debate once and for all, apparently.**  Umm, they could've just asked Mitchell and Webb...

Speaking of conspiracy-theories...Politico: Yes, the CIA Director Was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-Up.

The new Cold War marches on apace: Michael Fallon: UK to send troops to Baltic region.

Gizmodo: A Massive Bleaching Event is Threatening the World’s Coral Reefs.  World: <shrug>.

Of course we shrug off this much like we shrug off shooting-deaths in America, out of a sense of futility, of impotence.  Would that we'd known about climate-change earlier, huh ?

Oh, yeah: Exxon’s Own Scientists Confirmed Climate Change—In the 70s.  Nineteen-fuckin'-seventy-seven...

BBC: Manchester raids see more than a million cigarettes seized.  People buying and selling cigarettes illegally, huh ?

BBC: Tobacco tax increase urged by parliamentary group.  No comment.

The Dems' sure are having some fun with the Repubs' difficulty finding a Speaker to replace John Boehner:

New Scientist: Drug could kill harmful bacteria but leave benign ones untouched.  Genetically engineered phage viruses, specifically.

Scientific American: First Ancient African Genome Reveals Vast Eurasian Migration.

BBC: The creature with the key to immortality?  It's sea-anemones.


Oh yeah, and 'Spongebrain'*** Ben Carson said a whole bunch of stupid things regarding guns, victim-blaming, Popeyes, and the Holocaust.  Anything I link to here today will be outdone by whatever he says tomorrow.

Hell, let's end on a lighter note with a 'toon instead...So, here's humanity's future courtesy Arend van Dam:

* Or 'Indigenous Persons' Day', or what have you...

** As if any evidence would dissuade the conspiracy-theorists...

*** http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-carson-sponge-brain.  Far as I'm concerned, that's his new nickname going forward.

Link Dump (Blue Pill/Red Pill Edition)

Snowden tells us how GCHQ (and no doubt the NSA et al, also) can hack our smartphones at will, tracking us, even if the phone is switched off, taking pictures of us, etc.  And they named the various tools for spying on us after...made-up Smurf characters.  Hey, 'Dreamy Smurf' sounds kinda cute.  'Paranoid Smurf' not so much.

'Free-market' capitalism' rocks !  Bloomberg: Amazon to Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices.

The 'futurologist' telling schools they should prepare children to have to work (at shitty part-time jobs in the 'sharing economy') till they are one-hundred-years-old.  In part, supposedly because of the automation and robots taking so many existing jobs.  Well, that makes sense...Not.  Or we could accept that our existing economic model, didn't make much sense in the past, makes no sense now, and is utterly batshit-insane with the future we currently face, and seek some kind of fucking alternative...

Alex Salmond's super-secret undercover identity busted after he's blocked from boarding a British Airways flight as 'James T. Kirk'.

Telegraph: How your GP is paid to stop you going to hospital.  Oh, did we mention that these are largely cancer-patients doctors are paid not to refer to hospital ?

Reason Magazine on the evils of recycling.  Need moar landfills !

BBC with the funnies: UK end-of-life care 'best in world'.  Never heard of the Liverpool Care Pathway, then, have we Beeb ?

Finally a male contraceptive, via a protein-blocker for sperm ?

Grauniad: 'Militant leftwing' councils to be blocked from boycotting products.  By which, they mean boycotts on dealing with British arms-manufacturers, and especially BDS against Israel.

Fox Sports: Eight of Iran’s women’s football team ‘are men’.  No, never !

Former Labour-govt. official admits that they 'made a mistake' fucked up royally in promoting diesel as a supposedly eco-friendly alternative to petrol.  Whoops, sorry all those who suffered and/or died as a result of the extra pollution.  Better late than never ?

Who knew ?  Telegraph: Antarctic scientists face breathalyser tests due to alcohol-fuelled fighting and 'indecent exposure'.  Guess the Antarctic might be slightly boring...

RT: UN human rights fail: Saudi Arabia to ‘investigate themselves’ over Yemen war crimes.

A breastmilk-fortifier for prematurely born babies.

Reason on the twelve-year-old suspended from school for...staring at a girl.

Taking speed-traps to a whole new level...BBC: Speed cameras hidden in tractors criticised.

Via Balko, Jerry Brown, Libertarian crusader against excessive legislation ?

Speaking of Libertarians, the candidate for the LP in Florida in trouble for admitting to sacrificing a goat, and drinking its blood.  Er, whatever dude.  Who cares ?  Now tell us how your policies won't further enrich the wealthy and fuck over the poor.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's special debate-strategy: Imagine the other candidates as cute babies.  Man must have a hell of an imagination.  Then again, he is a highly-educated neurosurgeon who believes the Earth to be six-thousand years old...

Oh yeah, here's the same Ben Carson joking about his encounters with police in his youth 'back in the days before they would shoot you.'  Hee Hee.

And Ben Carson here & here advocating arming kindergarten-teachers.  That'll work out well no doubt.

Bullshit !  PR Newswire: New Survey Uncovers, Men Who Tuck Are Happier, More Successful, And Generally More Optimistic.  Their shirts that is.  And oh yeah, the poll was paid for by Fruit of the Loom...

Al.com: Voter ID and driver's license office closures black-out Alabama's Black Belt.  So, the Republicans in Alabama instituted bullshit Voter-ID Laws, then just happened to close the DMV-offices in poorer, largely black (and thus Democratic-voting) counties.  Whadda coinky-dink !

Mirror: Jeremy Hunt wants poor Brits to work like the Chinese in new insult piled on tax credit cuts.  Well, Somalia is more like the ultimate goal.  Obscene wealth for the 1%, lowest common denominator for ev'ryone else.

War is Boring on how Russia may be using their activities in Syria to spy on the US' F-22.

Rhetorical question from the New Statesman: Why is the government giving £45m to Roman Abramovich while letting a British steelworks go to the wall?

Oh yeah, and the evil TPP deal was finally agreed (look it up).  The details may or may not be available to the public a few decades from now...when the damage is already done.  Happy hump-day !

Update: Oh lookee, Hillary-come-lately finally voiced her bold opposition to the trade-deal she previously praised & helped promote whilst in office, now that the deal has been inked by all the nations involved, and Obama has the 'Fast Track' power to ram it through Congress without the possibility of debate or amendment.

What courage from the would-be future leader of the free world, she who so vehemently opposed the war in Iraq that she voted for its authorisation, and she who hemmed and hawed for months on the Keystone XL pipeline-deal she previously supported whilst in the administration, till prolonged low oil-prices made it politically and economically unviable !  Bold bold Hillary !

'Don't need a weatherman' do ya ?

Link Dump (Equinox Edition)

Love-ly...UK and Saudi Arabia 'in secret deal' over human rights council place.  In which the UK manages to look equally filthy with Saudi...Yah.

Slate: Donald Trump Steals Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan, Makes It Classier, More Luxurious

Daily Mail: Car industry is accused of burying report claiming that U.S. vehicles are much less safe than European ones.  Because the evil bastards were terrified of the impact of said report on the lunatic TTIP trade-deal, natch.

Twitter considering greater than 140-character posts...  Which will fix everything...

Ban on short sentences sought under Scots law.

Britain borrowing from China to build the most expensive power-station in history.

That long-overdue (partial) victory on the 'Happy Birthday' song.

A cure for (some age-related) blindness.

Vox on the 'Shirley Card' & racial bias in the development of colour film.

How Britain's GCHQ tracked(/s) the behaviours and habits of 'every visible user on the internet' across multiple platforms and technologies.

BoingBoing: Carly Fiorina boasts: I sold the NSA its mass-surveillance servers.

The Right-winger in the US calling for a two-state solution between 'liberals' semi-rational human beings and 'conservatives' delusional radical religious extremists.

Independent: Selfies are killing more people than shark attacks.
                                                                                     
The 'Cannabis Forest' found growing in London.

May not have looked it recent nights, but the moon is in fact...shrinking !  Oh noes...

The Redhead driven to terrorism by anti-white, anti-ginger prejudice.  Apparently.

How those who fidget live longer, even if sitting for long periods of time.

Not entirely above the law after all ?  Mirror: Saudi prince arrested on sex crime charge at £24m Beverly Hills mansion.

Pamela Geller declares victory in the war over the so-called 'Ground Zero Mosque'.  And so ends a sad sad episode in American history.

BBC: Hospital apologises after moving RAF man because of uniform.  Can't even...

I shouldn't laugh...but I will anyway....  Alternet: Kids Who Use Computers Heavily in School Have Lower Test Scores, Major Worldwide Study Finds.

The alleged embezzler of millions who disappeared to hike the Appalachian trail for six years.

How some smokers maintain 'healthy lungs' after a lifetime of smoking.  Genetic 'innit.

The (relative) recovery of the the North Sea cod.

World Report Now: Global warming started 75 years ago.

How Donald Trump made his fortune off government's back.  New York Times: Donald Trump and the Art of the Public Sector Deal

The Indiana couple stopped/arrested at gunpoint on the way to give birth at the hospital.  Basically for pissing off the cop by not pulling over immediately, though the DM's article doesn't make that clear.  Oh yeah, and the cops were heard on tape suggesting destroying the videographic evidence.

RIP Baseball-great Yogi Berra.  RIP also Twin Peaks' 'Log Lady', Catherine Coulson.

Shell halts drilling in the Arctic...until the price of oil rises again, and all political barriers fall before the...inevitable...and...necessary...rendering of our G-d-given resources...

Reason: Man Jailed for Traffic Ticket Dies in Cell After 17 Days of Torture. Officers Watched It Happen.

PETA wants apes granted copyright protection for fotos...G-d help us...PETA wants court to grant copyright to ape that snapped famous selfie

Martin Shkreli: The evil shit who raised the price of an essential drug by thousands of percentage-points.  And why he's not so remotely abnormal in this lunatic culture of ours.

Rare good tech-related news for the US: Ars Technica*: Broadband is a “core utility” like electricity, White House report says.

Ars': Forcing suspects to reveal phone passwords is unconstitutional, court says

The BBC's celebration of classic train-stations...and, via Phil Burrowes, Carparks...


* Not to be an arse, but when your name on the Internet consists of multiple words distinguished only via graphics and/or fonts, how is one supposed to render said name in plain text ?  'Ars Technica', 'arstechnica', or, WTF ?

Link Dump (Everything is Bonkers Edition)

As the ongoing 'War on Drugs' in the US plumbs new levels of insanity, a sixth-grader is suspended from school and charged with possession of marijuana, because he brought a maple-leaf to school.

And three negative tests on the leaf later, he's still under probation, prohibited from returning to his old school, and will be searched for drugs twice daily.  Because the 'stringent anti-drug policies in school districts in Virginia and elsewhere consider "imitation" drugs to be identical to real ones for disciplinary purposes.'  Wow.

Fan of 'Das Auto' ?  So, apparently VW is under investigation, for rigging some of their diesel-driven cars such that they would detect the presence of emissions-tests and enter a special low-emissions mode, whilst the rest of the time, under normal operations spewing out up to forty times the permissible levels of nitrogen-oxide.  Eco-friendly, huh ?

Reuters: London fifth-priciest city in the world but earnings lag behind.  Hmm.  Wonder why that might be...

The toy-panda sent on the 'Dambusters'-raids in the Second World War.

The 'pseudohermaphrodites' or 'Guevedoces' of Salinas in the Dominican Republic.

Richard Dawkins gets involved in the debate over whether teen Ahmed Mohamed 'invented' his clock or not.

Telegraph: Sex does not trigger heart attacks even after health scare.

That story about David Cameron's alleged relations with a dead pig while at Oxford.

Japan votes to allow its military 'Self-Defense Forces' a greater role operating overseas.  But only after this happened:

The Irish Times: Whitney Houston’s hologram is going on a world tour. Is nothing sacred?  Evidently not.

'Super-gonorrhoea'.  'Nuff said.

Another case of someone arrested (and tased) for 'walking while black'.  As pointless and depressing as you might imagine.

Ukraine pissed as Silvio Berlusconi & Vladimir Putin drink 240-year-old bottle of wine whilst visiting a winery in Crimea.

Laws...are for little people.  BBC: Qatari sheikh leaves US after Ferrari race through LA.

Guardian: Boris Johnson speaks out against government plans to cut solar subsidies.  Got to differentiate himself somehow.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, seems Malcolm Turnbull may be moderating the anti-environment excesses of former-PM Abbott.

BBC on the bleeding obvious: One in three councils 'not replacing Right to Buy homes'.

Independent: The NHS could collapse within two years, former health minister Norman Lamb warns.  Whatevs.

Missed this last time: The cop accused of planting cocaine in someone's car, because they wanted 'to “show off” for the cameras in an episode of “COPS” '.

Oh, and this also.  Notice the trend over time ?

Link Dump (Croatian Navy Day Edition*)

The sick details of how Argentine troops in the Falklands War were tortured and abused by their own side.

On the subject of the same war, the Beeb on Will Kevans' graphic novel My Life in Pieces.

Speaking of sick, what the hell ?  Migrant crisis: Smugglers 'deliberately holed boat', says survivor.

What climate-change ?  BBC: The next two years could be the hottest on record globally, says research from the UK's Met Office.

Science magazine: U.S. Navy to limit sonar testing to protect whales.

Gaius Publius on Joe 'Bankruptcy Bill' Biden and the crisis in student-debt in the US.

Two prisoners charged with...making a rap-video in their prison-cell.

'Rainbow Doritos' ?  The politicisation of the rainbow continues apace...as does the inevitable right-wing backlash.

So, that library that the DHS intimidated into shutting down its Tor exit-node ?  Voted to turn it back on as other libraries indicated their support in also hosting exit-nodes.

Part-time Mayor of London, Boris Johnson in hot water after calling London cabbies luddites.  Hmm, wonder what the Deputy Leader of the opposition might have to say on the same subject.

Trump's campaign interpreted thru the lens of professional wrestling.

Matt Bai makes the case for John Kasich as the alternative for the Republican establishment to faltering Jeb Bush.

How (some of) the Republican candidates in the last debate fared via the Flesch-Kincaid Test:

Well it's a start...Elizabeth Warren wants to prevent the use of credit-checks prior to employment.

Bees' needs: US bans new neonicotinoid sulfoxaflor, whilst allowing most other neonicotinoids, suspected for their role in the collapse of bee-colonies.  European Union meanwhile has approved sulfoxaflor, whilst banning most other existing neonicotinoids.  Confused ?

AllDay: The Flying Railroad Between London And Paris That Almost Happened.  (Clickbaity ads. galore too...so be warned)

The call for banning trans fats in the UK.

Nate Silver's visual representation of Hillary Clinton's coverage in the US media:

I'm guessing there will be no forthcoming graphic for the coverage of Chafee, Webb, or even O'Malley, because for the most part, the media doesn't cover (or even acknowledge) them at all.

The Clinton Super PAC allegedly** attempting to link Bernie Sanders to Hugo Chavez, and, via Corbyn, to bin Laden & Hezbollah.

BBC: Nicola Sturgeon: David Cameron 'living on borrowed time'.  I've nothing to add to what I said here & here.

In defence of political correctness on campus...Sarah Silverman.  Critiquing the same...President Barack Obama.  Huh.

Boing Boing: Crown shyness - when trees don't like to touch each other.

Awesome.  Apparently, you have the right to reply to a speeding-ticket...thusly:

The eight Mexican tourists mistaken for terrorists and killed in the desert by Egypt.

In case you've been living under a rock, the student in Texas arrested for bringing his homemade clock to school.  Islamophobia ?

The call for a ban on sex-robots.

Better battery-life with iOS9 ?  Colour me sceptical.

MediaMatters: Watching GOP Debate Was Like "Watching 11 Rush Limbaughs".

And finally, the countries of the world as sized by their stock-markets:

* Why the fuck not ?

** Don't have any reason to doubt it, but why aren't they publishing the actual e-mail ?  With redactions if needed.

Link Dump (Post-9/11 Edition)

The Times, The Sun, the once-respected Wall Street Rag...Somehow the loss of none of these publications quite compares with Murdoch acquiring fucking National Geographic...and turning it into a for-profit.  One and a quarter-centuries of journalistic and scientific excellence gone in an instant into the black-hole of media that is Rupert Murdoch's gaping maw.  RIP

Said publication recently provided a look at the primitive new hominid* species found in South Africa.

Independent: Scientists to wake up 30,000-year-old 'giant' virus.  Insert your own plot for sci-fi horror flick.

Meanwhile, 32,000 years ago or earlier, humans appear to have been making porridge.

So, resveratrol, the compound also found in chocolate & red wine may help in preventing or at least slowing Alzheimer's.  The dosage in question ?  About that of one-thousand bottles of red wine...a day...

Charging a thirteen-year-old student with second-degree assault, because he...kissed a fourteen-year-old girl on a dare.  Shit, at least he's not being charged as an adult, as almost seems the norm. these day in the US (for anyone over say seven or so).

The aforementioned 'Rag on Amazon's new $50 tablets.

BBC's Peston gives what could be considered a positive spin on the collapse of British manufacturing.

CNN: Elon Musk's new idea: Nuke Mars.  No, really.

Independent: Stop using difficult-to-guess passwords, UK's spying agency GCHQ recommends.

Despite the obvious inferences, to this being suggested by GCHQ of all people, there is actually a point to using simpler...but longer passphrases, rather than the complex passwords to which we have become accustomed...or rather accustomed to writing down on sticky pads.  Unfortunately, we have a gazillion different passwords to manage, and no-one setting rational standards for password-requirements across all the different organisations with which we interact.

Rick Perry's floundering campaign for the presidency finally fizzles out.  Any bets on the next joke-candidate to fall ?

Guardian: Poll finds almost a third of Americans would support a military coup.

Flag of as-yet non-existent Palestinian state to fly in front of the UN.  So the flag of Kurdistan will also be flying alongside it soon one would hope.  And soon after, that of the Free Republic of Liberland.**

First library to support 'anonymous' browsing via Tor successfully scared out of it by totalitarian Bush-era 'Department of Homeland Security.'

Quartz: New York’s Tribute in Light to 9/11 is stunning to both people and birds.  Shame, they are beautiful.

First conviction in the US under laws banning 'crush'-videos.  Woman in question tortured, mutilated, and killed small animals in pretty horrific ways.

Elton John: I want to meet Putin over gay rights.  Uh, going to resist the obvious...

Film Truth debuts at Toronto International Film Festival.  The subject, an episode involving one Dan Rather who was tricked into airing faked memos regarding the service (or deficit thereof) in the Texas Air National Guard of one George W Bush.

The episode, as you might recall, ended Rather's decades-long career with CBS News, and by removing all attention from the actual story of Dubya's military-service (of lack thereof) at the same time that the very real service of one Purple Heart-winner and presidential contender John Kerry was being viciously smeared, may well have helped swing the election and lumber the United States and the world with four more years of Bush & Co.****

AlterNet on US Congress blocking labelling by states of GMO-products, whilst meanwhile California becomes the first state to label Monsanto's pesticide Roundup as carcinogenic.

BBC: Travelling to work 'is work', European court rules.

War is Boring on the de Havilland Vampire, first jet to take off & land from an aircraft-carrier, and on the continuing history of Iran's fleet of F-14 Tomcats.


* Fuck the NatGeo's 'Style Manual'.  Might as well be written on TP now.

** Hell, while we're at it...***

*** Too offensive for the main post perhaps, but anything goes in the footnotes I always feel.

**** Description of said sordid affair mine, not that of the filmmakers.  The, ah...truth will out eventually.

Link Dump (WTF Edition)

A 23-storey Liver Bird for Liverpool's skyline ?

Headline of the Day: German homeopathy conference ends in mass psychedelic overdose.

Just what the presidential election in the US needed...Ex-fugitive millionaire creator of anti-virus-software John McAfee plans to run*.

Pope Francis makes it easier for Catholics who wish to remarry to seek an annulment.

The Atlantic on how 'Kate's Law' could swell prison-populations and cost the US Billions.

The shitty conditions of tea-estates producing many of the UK's top brands.  Uh, Profit.  Profit über Alles.  Profit, Profit, Profit, Profit, Profit.

Danny Boyle confirms sequel to Trainspotting, with return of four main actors.

The woman whose obituary requested that 'In lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Hillary Clinton'.

Bears don't like GoPro's evidently:

And no more do human relatives, chimpanzees.

So, there's some talk about the potential transmittability of Alzheimers...or is it CJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease).  Either way, I'm guessing a) the headlines over-egg any actual risk, and b) We consistently over-estimate our own understanding, as when, in my lifetime, we routinely dismissed the idea that cancer could be linked to viruses.  Whoops.

BBC on a new test of how well...or poorly one's body is ageing.

So, a white woman in Ohio tried to sue a fertility-clinic after being impregnated with a black man's sperm by mistake...

China planning a landing on the dark side of the Moon.  No, not a manned landing.  Have at you, with the references to Pink Floyd.

Drunk man frustrated with the service at 'SoftBank' takes it out by giving a kicking to an emotion-reading robot.

Glamour-models' 'selfies' before & after makeup.  Unsurprisingly, most look more attractive (never mind, more human)...before.

Guardian: Labour: up to eight in shadow cabinet may refuse to serve with Corbyn.

Conservative Party of Canada loses two candidates in one day, one of whom was uncovered as the contractor seen urinating into a customer's coffee-cup on CBC's Marketplace, and the other of whom had posted to YouTube years ago potentially offensive prank-videos in which he pretended to be mentally disabled.

BBC: Queen Elizabeth: Rarely seen pictures from childhood.

Here, Princess Elizabeth places Princess Margaret's arm in a sling at a meeting of the Girl Guides in Frogmore, Windsor, in 1942.

Not how I would picture Princess Margaret somehow.

Freed religious lunatic fêted by right-wing theocratic Republican candidate for President in Kentucky.  As per usual at all Republican campaign-events, use popular hit-song without permission.

The Muslim flight-attendant fighting her suspension over her refusal to serve alcohol, as a supposed violation of her religious beliefs.  Mike Huckabee coming to her defence any day now...

Why didn't Netflix pick up Clarkson & Co. ?  Because it just 'wasn't worth the money.'  Don't blame 'em.

Driverless cars can be stopped/manipulated by a cheap laser-pointer.

Photographic evidence for parking-tickets manipulated digitally in Lincoln ?

Meanwhile, the city of Boston has apparently been maintaining the database from their licenceplate-reader in plain text on the Internet with no password-protection.**  Lovely.

An 'immunity gene' for Influenza ?

Telegraph: Five surprising health benefits of being overweight

CounterPunch: Growing Doubt: a Scientist’s Experience of GMOs.

The WaPo's factchecking on widely reported numbers on sex-trafficking of children in the US.

New Scientist: 10 mysteries that physics can’t answer… yet.

Oh yeah, this happened:

So, would now be a bad time to link to an opinion-piece by Peter Hitchens ?***...Fuck it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3223828/PETER-HITCHENS-won-t-save-refugees-destroying-country.html

You will see this video again.  If I have anything to do with it.  Or otherwise...'You may get bored with winning...' by the...'very very stoopid people.'

* Ex-fugitive ?  Kinda tells you when I was last paying attention to Mister McAfee.

** If you don't see why this is a problem, and are involved in any kind of political decisions regarding technology, please recuse yourself immediately.

*** I never claimed to be a Labourite, now did I ?