Nec Hoc Nec Ilud

* More than 400 are now confirmed dead with 149 still missing and presumed dead. It is thought this is the 2nd worst industrial "accident" in South Asia, after Bhopal. (Too young to remember Bhopal? Google it. We'll wait. Thousands of people died and tens of thousand made sick when deadly gas leaked into a populated area). I hate calling the factory collapse and accident because it was pretty clearly deliberate. They knew it wasn't even close to safe. Employees were scared to go in, but the owners threatened them and they were too poor not to give in. Protests continue, completely understandably. I can't think of any other appropriate response than incandescent fury.

* "Cuban Ladies in White march again:" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8657567.stm

* A woman in China poisoned two young children, because she thought murdering them would improve the business for her pre-school. Let me repeat, people paid her to take care of their children, but she was the sort of person who thought killing children at a rival school was okay.

* Boston Bombing Update: Allegedly, a couple of the younger bomber's friends went to his dorm room and threw out anything they thought might be incriminating. They have now told authorities where they threw the backpack out and authorities recovered it. Another boy has been charged with giving a false statement to the police.

* Remember governor ultrasound? The man with an unhealthy interest in forced government penetration of women against their will? He is also under investigation for being wildly corrupt.

* Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania wants everyone to know that it was necessary for the republicans to block universal background checks so as to deny President Obama a victory. Yep, their partisan point scoring is more important than all the lives universal background checks would save. After all, which is more important, spite or the greater good of the country? The Republican answer is spite, of course.

* The School to Prison Pipeline at Work:

( Embed: )

* People being turned away from cancer clinics because the Republicans insist the imaginary debt crisis requires all these people to die or travel long distances, even though this is way more expensive to the government and so increases the debt. Yep, all these people are suffering for no reason at all.

( Embed: )

* The Propaganda at the Bush Library is worse than at first thought:

( Embed: )

* If you are Near LA, Stay safe, Okay? That wildfire looks brutal.

* "Could Body Armor Have Saved Millions in World War I?" http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/could-body-armor-have-saved-millions-in-world-war-i/275417/

* "Pro-Environment Light Bulb Labeling Turns Off Conservatives, Study Finds:" http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/04/130430-light-bulb-labeling/

* John Stewart on Guantanamo Bay:

( Embed: )

* Stephen Colbert on the Backlash against lawmakers blocking background checks:

( Embed: )

* The Word - Medical Leave

( Embed: )

* Forced Tank Spending:

( Embed: )

* It looks like probate is finally dripping to a close. The last eight months or so of waiting around has been Merrill Lynch's fault. They would request documents, then "lose" them, then demand copies, then "lose" them, up to four times in some cases. They would suddenly "discover" they'd asked for the wrong papers or not enough papers and then "lose" those too. The lesson is, never do business with Merrill Lynch as they are either criminals or criminally incompetent, neither of which you want in a banker. They are only giving us our inheritance because our lawyer threatened to sue. So, I should know where i am financially soon. Finally.

* History: http://www.shortpacked.com/2013/comic/book-15/01-about-face/history/

* Scary shit the republicans are up to in the Carolinas and people pushing back:

( Embed: )

* Sister Citizen is about the damage negative images do to African American Women:

( Embed: )

* Congress wants to remind everyone that the FAA exemption is a reasonable thing because flight delays are a much bigger inconvenience than literally dying of cancer because you've been denied chemotherapy. After all, flight delays affect rich people, major corporations, and congress folk, while the mere humans the sequester is literally killing are just ordinary taxpayers who are being denied a service they paid for in advance, and therefore their needs should not be taken into account.

* Bombings and guns couldn't close this clinic, but a Virginia trap law just did as the Repubican war on Women continues.

( Embed: )

* A Massive rethink of the Mayan and Olmec civilization origins seems to be in order: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130425-maya-origins-olmec-pyramid-ceibal-inomata-archaeology-science/

* "The trials of Sancho de Ciudad and his wife, Maria Diaz.:" http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/His-story-and-her-story-311101

* "The Cost of More Security Is a Reduced Tolerance for the Risks That Make Life Great:" http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/25/the-cost-of-more-security-is-a-reduced-t

* "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay." - Jason Collins, the first active male player on a US team sport to come out.

* "The Value of Silence:" http://www.sparkindarkness.com/2013/04/the-value-of-silence.html

* "Historical Inaccuracy: No Homosexuality in Medieval Europe:" http://arsmarginal.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/historical-inaccuracy-no-homosexuality-in-medieval-europe/

* "It's time to admit that Goth culture has a race problem:" http://bedlambedlam.com/2013/04/its-time-to-admit-that-goth-culture-has-a-race-problem/

* "Having fucked up shit vs. saying fucked up shit:" http://arsmarginal.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/have-vs-say-fuckedup-shit/

* "You are not immune:" http://arsmarginal.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/you-are-not-immune/

* I am still being jerked around on my hormones. They made me go down there and pay for a Doctor's visit, wait for an extra half hour in the waiting room, just to spend two minutes telling me they were jerking me around for another month instead of phoning me and cancelling my appointment. Assholes. I'm also in Doctor limbo again as they loaned my Doctor out for months to another clinic, so I'm being jerked around by a stranger I've never met. Today was the first time in over a month Hector let me sleep, but the appointment I had to get up and dress and go down there for robbed me of almost as much as Hector's been stealing, so I'm extra resentful. I did do bills, but it took twice as long as it needed to as the boys are being tag team destructive and I kept having to drop what I was doing to deal with that. I can't air the house properly because of the Butt being fixated on escape. I just want sleep, a whole eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I know this is an unreasonable demand, but I can't keep going like this.

* Melissa Harris-Perry addresses the double standard in a law designed to starve children, shame single parents, and create a permanent underclass in Tennessee:

( Embed: )

* "Thousands of Medicare cancer patients lose chemo because of sequester:" http://americablog.com/2013/04/medicare-cancer-patients-sequester.html

* You know how I keep saying that white supremacist terrorists are by far a bigger threat in the US than the other types? The Republicans are pitching a fit over a report that points out that is quantitatively true: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/07/645421/right-wing-extremism/

* Honoring Jackie Robinson:

( Embed: )

* Melissa Harris-Perry Addresses some fucked up things going on in the NCAA lately:

( Embed: )

* The AP style book has just changed their guide to talking about immigrants. They have banned calling human beings "Illegal" or "Illegals." People may be "undocumented." Activities can be illegal, but not people. This may seem like a small thing, but it removes a pejorative used to harm people from a major news source. It may seem like a small thing, but it's progress.

* "Kelly Young Killed In Baltimore:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/04/kelly-young-killed-in-baltimore.html

* "Instigator Of CeCe McDonald Case Sentenced:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/04/instigator-of-cece-mcdonald-case.html

That's right. She got 180 days for what is clearly a hate crime and felony assault. the woman she attacked got 41 months in jail for the crime of self defense.

* This Esquire piece from 2010 had me in tears towards the end, "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man:" http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310

* My table top is official for 782 CE. This will somewhat overlap the old campaign, but I don't think it'll be a problem, given what the players were up to the last couple years it ran.

* I have a huge stack of stuff to read, both for my game and from the reader suggestions y'all made. I'm reading the ILL's first, even though they arrived later, as ILL is often nonrenewable. The reader suggestions were for books with same sex romantic leads that are both alive at the end of the book. The first one I finished was The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin, a swashbuckling Sapphic Pirate romance. This is not a profound book, nor is it intend to be. Instead it's a straightforward adventure/romance novel with strong female leads. You get pirate battles, you get the rescuing of damsels, you get seduction, you get sex scenes, you get a pretty satisfying character arc for the view point character. I think this would be terribly fun beach reading. There is a place in the world for well written fluff with likeable characters and as that was what I was expecting, I wasn't disappointed. The only real problem is the way the black characters are portrayed and that the only named black character is a villain. It's something that bothered me all the way through.

* Big Wired interviews Dennis Upkins at Norwestcon! He's got two novellas coming out: http://big-wired.livejournal.com/321740.html

* This gets at a particular sort of assholery going on in complaints about this years Hugo nominations: http://corabuhlert.com/2013/04/04/hugo-nomination-reactions-or-why-the-fuck-is-this-controversial/#more-6413

* "All Our Heroes Are Bastards:" http://jaylake.livejournal.com/3131870.html

* "The 25 Best Photobombs of All Time in the Universe Ever:" http://www.funnyist.com/the-25-best-photobombs-of-all-time-in-the-universe-ever/

This entry was originally posted at http://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/299710.html. Please comment there using OpenID.