Weekend link dump for August 31

The Ice Bucket Challenge has been a nice little windfall for the ALS Association, but what they really need – what we as a country really need – is a greater public investment in medical and scientific research. Thanks to the stupid sequester and our general fetish of “balanced” budgets, we’ve cut a ton of money from the National Institutes of Health. Rather than pouring buckets of water over our heads, how about we all write a letter to our members of Congress and Senators demanding that they restore the money that has been cut from the NIH budget?

And of course, some of the members of Congress that did the Ice Bucket Challenge were among those responsible for those NIH budget cuts.

“So, a hellmouth is open. No one panic.”

“Jell-O has lost its jiggle and nobody knows how to fix it.”

Could TV sitcom characters really afford to live in the homes they were shown to have?

Please wear sunscreen, kids. It’s important.

“Actions taken by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act have caused U.S. toxic air emissions to drop” by an estimated 3 million tons, from mobile and stationary sources, every year.

“Whenever a baseball game takes longer than three and a half hours, pundits go through the roof. Whenever there’s a week (like the second week of preseason games this year) where the NFL has just one game finish in under three hours, you don’t hear a peep.”

RIP, Richard Attenborough, film actor and director. Remember Jurassic Park? He was the rich guy that built it.

Mark Evanier supplies another reason not to smoke, in case you needed it.

There will be a Lost-themed episode of Phineas and Ferb airing on September 29. My life is almost complete now.

My fellow Catholics, if you participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge, you were, technically at least, sinning.

You keep calling yourself a “libertarian”. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Your employer can legally lie to you in Texas.

“ALS causes 3.9 deaths per 100,000 people. The same number of deaths are caused each year by birth defects, drowning deaths in people less than 4 years old or more than 85 years old, or from firearms, respectively.”

“According to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), middle and high school students shouldn’t be required to start school before 8:30 in the morning“. My kids would definitely agree with that.

“This article is a list of list articles on Wikipedia, wherein the articles comprise a list of things that are themselves lists of things.” Yes, it’s a list of lists of lists. Somewhere, Bertrand Russell is smiling.

“Sure, in the Gospels — written decades later by devoted followers — Jesus is portrayed as perfect and sinless, an innocent, spotless lamb. But that’s not what it looked like at the time. He was executed because he was a thug who deserved it — a seditious vandal who knocked over tables, blasphemed, and threatened to destroy the House of God. Jesus died in disgrace.”

“It is, ostensibly, the most convoluted lawsuit involving a stuffed, farting hippo ever.”

And speaking of stuffed, farting hippos, here’s another measure of the unprecedented obstructionism of Senate Republicans.

Turns out Medicare costs aren’t rising all that much any more.

“Even though Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who fancies himself to be a thought leader in the party, still tweets #FullRepeal with regularity, he’s become an increasingly lonely voice. The use of Obamacare as an effective Republican attack looks almost at its end. It’s been a long time coming.”

I salute you, Lucy Coffey. And this is why Wonkette refers to our Vice President as “Handsome ol’ Joe Biden, God love him”.

You would think that encouraging workers to stay home when they’re sick would be universally accepted.

“At the risk of being a woman to weigh in on this debate, it seems that the argument here is asking the wrong question. Don’t those men who said those things have a responsibility to step forward, admit what they did, and apologize?”

I’m not sure we’ll ever hit peak gun.

Reflecting on Ken Phelps, who was a better player than Seinfeld gave him credit for, though he was past his prime by the time he was traded for Jay Buhner.

Who could possibly think that John Boehner has been an effective Speaker?

Related Posts:

This entry was posted in Blog stuff and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.