It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts. – Thomas Huxley
As I predicted in last week’s links column, I had a surfeit of material this week, so much so that I cut off the flow Friday and allotted the links which came in yesterday to next week’s column (which may be short again due to the Thanksgiving holiday). This week’s champ was perennial Linkfinder General Radley Balko (who contributed everything down to the first video), but five others contributed two links each: Jesse Walker (first video and the first link below it), Walter Olson (“baseball bat” and “psychotic judge”), Furry Girl (“fan death” and the one just above it), Lenore Skenazy (“zip ties” and “oak trees”) and Franklin Harris (“omnishambles” and “sphinx”). “Bird passwords” was contributed by Antonio Lorusso, “tased boy” by Thomas Larson, “d20” by Nick Tolman, “Hays code” by Cthulhuchick and the last link before the second video by Melissa Gira Grant. One more thing: most of you have probably heard that Irish doctors murdered a pregnant Indian dentist this week, but because the defenders of the law which allowed this travesty to happen have thrown up a cloud of obfuscation, here’s an explanation of what happened by regular reader Korhomme.
- Headlines of the week.
- Cops tase man for trying to put out a fire.
- Dear Jezebel: snitching to “authorities” is worse than juvenile racism.
- Journalism student suspended and threatened by university for practicing journalism.
- NOT an Onion story: Top Georgia GOP lawmakers host briefing on secret Obama mind-control plot.
- Cops kick 5’3” (161 cm) tall handcuffed, disabled man in the head, then set fire to his disabled mother.
In 28 years we’ll be able to laugh at the more extreme “trafficking” excesses as easily as we laugh at this sample of “Satanic” hysteria from a May, 1984 episode of the Today show.
- Long but interesting: “The Great New England Vampire Panic”.
- The bird that teaches secret passwords to its unhatched chicks.
- Reminder to attorneys: Don’t beat your clients with a baseball bat.
- Legislators in four more states announce bills to legalize marijuana.
- Korean fan death.
- How to escape from zip ties.
- The OED’s word of the year is the superb “omnishambles”.
- Cops pepper-spray and tase 14-year-old boy hiding under a van.
- For the D&D player who has everything: a d20 from Ptolemaic Egypt.
- I’ve often mentioned the Hays Code, but y’all might like to know what was actually in it.
- Woman demands that city chop down oak trees because her children are allergic to nuts.
- Apparently, this particular call by a radical Islamist to destroy the sphinx and pyramids is not a hoax.
- Chicago re-elects incompetent judge who is prone to psychotic episodes and currently suspended due to being charged with criminal battery.
- “The FBI…devoted substantial resources [and] engaged in highly invasive surveillance…to…find out who was very mildly harassing [a friend of one of its agents] by email.”
Rachel Bloom (the “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” girl) has a new video:
- As above, so below: “The sun…had a companion…that tipped the solar nebula…then fled the scene after the planets arose.”
- Only in a sick, puritanical culture could giving in to begging be classified as “felony assault”.
- This woman really needs to read and understand my column “Honored in the Breach”.
- FBI agents smash into house and shoot at teenage girl for no apparent reason.
- How to remove yourself from “people search” websites.
- I’ve always found rogue planets fascinating.
