September 2012
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“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or...”
– John Adams, American diplomat & politician (1735-1826) in Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, December 1770.
August 2012
19 posts
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The 2012 Republican National Convention summarized...
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“People don’t see any way out of what’s going on economically or...”
– Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor on the jailing of members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot [source]
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“Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the...”
– Opens Tom Morello in a scathing Rolling Stone op-ed lashing the VP nominee (via tpmmedia)
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Paul Ryan as VP Would Match Mitt Romney on... →
Paul Ryan has voted to ban same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples, and he voted against repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays serving openly in the military.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
Romney supports amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. And Ryan twice voted in support of the failed Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2006.
...
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“The cost of taking part in creating history is always staggeringly high for...”
– Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot, whose trial on charges of hooliganism concluded in a Moscow courtroom this past week. The closing statement of Tolokonnikova and of her co-defendants is available here.
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“One of the great frustrations faced by science writers is that, more often than...”
– Jesse Bering, “The Prideful, Arrogant President of Chick-fil-A” (Slate, 6 August 2012)
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WatchLet ‘em all speak!
wisconsinforward:
“Let the buyer beware because this is the bedlam that could, just five months from now, be ruling the republic.”
Brilliant.
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“It has been brought to my attention that the stick figure decals on the back...”
– Some random web post
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“My dear son,
I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as...”
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In 1957, at 18 years of age, future billionaire and founder of CNN, Ted Turner, informed his father that he would be majoring in Classics after being inspired by a professor at Brown University. His father was furious to say the least, and responded to his son’s announcement with the following...
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“Their only crime was being young, arrogant, and beautiful.”
– Patti Smith on the members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot, in Oslo, Norway, 1 August 2012. The band’s trial this week on charges of ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’ has exposed some inconvenient truths about the Russian justice system.
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Try Stargazing Tonight!
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BREAKING: Prop 8 proponents ask Supreme Court to... →
“QUESTION PRESENTED: Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a manand a woman.”
If the Court takes this case, and the petitioners win, the result will be a catastrophe.
cognitivedissonance:
Read the petition at the link above. We’ll know by early October if the Supreme Court chooses...
July 2012
35 posts
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prussiahasinvaded:
oh my god Richard Feynman went to a costume party once dressed up as Queen Elizabeth II
and he did a strip tease
I just felt like everyone should know this
I ♥ you, Richard Feynman.
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In Rotation: July 2012
Boy Crisis - “Bohemian Grove” (Tulipomania, 2009)
Claps - “House” (Wreck, 2011)
The dB’s - “Big Brown Eyes” (Stands for deciBels, 1981)
Duran Duran - “Late Bar” (Duran Duran, 1981)
Gorillaz - “Stylo (feat. Mos Def & Bobby Womack)” (Plastic Beach, 2010)
Guster - “Satellite” (Ganging Up On the Sun, 2006)
Hiperboreal -...
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia and the Right to...
[Fox News host Chris] Wallace: What about the right to privacy that the Court found in 1965?
[Antonin] Scalia: There is no right to privacy. No generalized right to privacy.
Wallace: Well, in the Griswold case, the court said there was.
Scalia: Indeed it did, and that was -- that was wrong.
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“We show the brutal and cruel side of the government. We don’t do...”
– “Squirrel”, of the Russian feminist punk rock collective Pussy Riot, three of whose members are currently political prisoners of the Putin regime in Russia. (source)
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marielikestodraw:
The medias are talking a lot about hero Sally Ride passing away (and what a phenomenal woman she was indeed, wow), but none of them are mentioning that the woman who shared her life for 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy, will get no widow benefits from the States like astronauts’s spouses usually do. Because gay.
Lesbian is still an ugly word, eh?
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“We’re sorry that 12 people had to die in Aurora, Colo. But we aren’t sorry...”
– The New Republic’s Timothy Noah in “Aurora: How Sorry Are We”, who notes that the purchase of tear gas like that used in Friday’s attack is perfectly legal in Colorado
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“I think it’s terrible when anyone dies, especially if it is someone you...”
– Marilyn Manson, who, in 1999, wrote a powerful essay for Rolling Stone reflecting on a similarly tragic and unexplainable shooting, also in Colorado. Well worth reading for its insight and similarities to today’s terrible misfortune, “Columbine: Who’s Fault Is It?” (via climateadaptation)
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“Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and...”
– The Lee Resolution, 1776
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