Rep. Elijah Cummings is my hero.

The European Refugee Crisis and Syria Explained

Uh oh....

A curious cold spot in the Atlantic has scientists thinking their worst fears have come true.

The answer may be simple, and it’s definitely sad. The cold spot in the Atlantic is likely a symptom of a problem climate scientists have been fearing for years. Record cold temps in this condensed area of the ocean suggests that the circulation of water currents in the Atlantic is slowing. Warm and cold water should be mixing to normalize water temperatures, but the currents are functioning the way they need to. They rely on differences in temperature and salinity, which basically means that cold salty water in the North Atlantic sinks (it’s really dense) and warmer southern waters move northward to take its place. When a large influx of cold, fresh water is introduced to the picture, the system goes haywire and the water circulation patterns are weakened because the sinking doesn’t occur. And where is the fresh water coming from? The melting glaciers, of course. If the trend continues, it could mean rising sea levels along the East Coast and a change in temperature for Europe and North America.

Norway saves the planet and other stuff

Thank you, Norway!  Helping keep the Brazilian rain forests alive.

Kate Beaton.

Joe Hill, who should never be erased from history.



Library books that people try to censor most.

Myth Surrounding Alleged Iranian Nuclear Facility Begins to Unravel

Bill Nye and women's reproduction.

When and Where to See the Super-Rare Supermoon Lunar Eclipse

The evils of microbeads.

Melting Paint Stripping Sex Robots and then some

Video suggesting what Earth would look like if all the ice melted.

Remembering what Republicans would like to forget about Reagan.

Gut-punching article on the mass incarceration of blacks and what it has done to the family.

Trumpets across Jakarta?

Having to follow ALL the rules not to get raped.

Why day dreaming, science fiction, and libraries are necessary.

Paint-stripping chemicals like methylene chloride are deadly.  Fatal.  Fatally deadly.  Deadly fatal.

Would sex robots help misogynists stay out of the dating pool?

Mathematician suing to get Kansas election records because suspicions of election fraud.

The Republican debate in 25 seconds

With as much clarity as the real one.

Plastic radioactive oceans, no snowpack, and another end of the world is coming

Monsanto and scientists collude to push GMO on the public.

Water from Fukushima dumped into Pacific.  And fracking is poisoning us all.  And (youtube) our oceans are turning into plastic soup.

History of the Pledge of Allegiance.

President Obama makes the case that Republicans are un-American.

Snowpack in California is at a 500 year low.

Being a Neolithic farmer sucked.  Although living right now can suck too.

Yet another end of the world is coming in late September.

George Takei explains why Kim Davis is wrong.  Let this be the final statement of this idiocy.  (Please!)

Response by University of Missouri Student Body President Payton Head to hateful name-calling directed at him.

836,290 deaths since 1989.  If this was a disease, we'd be frantically trying to find a cure.  But this number is deaths by guns.  We have an answer, we just are too afraid to say it.  Gun control, gun safety.

End robocalls!

A Canadian viewpoint of Donald Trump

Via Bryan of Why Now? a wonderful take on the Republican Golem:

The paternal, indulgent smile usually worn by the barbered and tanned Republican establishment is gone. 

In its place is whey-faced fear. The primary-season freakshow that once served the party's interests so nicely now threatens to consume it. 

Mainstream Republicans (admittedly a relative term nowadays) have lost control to a reality show star, a vulgar braggart who somehow manages to evince populism while flaunting extreme wealth and his membership in the .0001 per cent club. 

Donald Trump transcends the freakshow, he's the whole carnival in one man, and taking the car keys away from him isn't going to be easy, if it can be done at all. 

It wasn't supposed to work this way. The freakshow is meant to entertain and pacify the Don't-Tread-On-Me Tea Party bunch during the endless American primary season. 

The idea is to promise unattainable far-right goals until the actual campaign starts, when the adults step in and make the compromises inevitably necessary to attain national power.

Rapid Response Referral Program

For veterans in need.  What a wonderful idea by the IAVA.

Skeletons in our closets

How English sounded 500 years ago.

One of my favorite comic artists Kate Beaton who illustrates and writes Hark! A Vagrant!

Medieval skeleton found when large tree is uprooted in a storm.

Why 80,000 rape kits have been ignored.  A Quaker talks about helping protect those who need abortions.

Homophobia leads to death threats.  I think the gay is buried deep in this one.  And speaking of forced submission and obsession about dominance, this article suggests 43% of Republicans would favor a military coup.

Put solar cells on everything!

Windows 10 is on your computer... even if you don't want it there.

Trying to explain Donald Trump.

Friday to Friday creeps in its petty pace ....

Ways to avoid being eaten by mosquitoes.

What climate change means to polar bears.  And to bring back to life ancient pathogens which may or may not be virulent.

Building a sailboat and the love of woodcraft.

The opposite of hoarding... being too clean?

A necessary and informative timeline from the New York Times (takes us only to April 2015) to show how long it took to get the Iran nuclear agreement and why it is a big effing deal.  And why Cheney wants Iran to be all Obama's fault.

How to catch liars.

A designer for Silicon Valley.  She's over 90.

A scientist's doubts over GMOs.  French court finds Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning.

Harvard linguist points out the 58 most commonly misused words and phrases

Dealing with depression.

9/11 conspiracies list.

The point we have been making all along

Stalking women, drought, voting fraud, and guns.

Ben Carson's view of women.  Stalking is not romantic.

How to understand and end California's drought.

Lion cub learning how to swim.

Dealing with the radiation fears about Fukushima.

Have self-compassion.

Kansas voting is manipulated.

President Obama is a class act.  Dealing with Native Americans.

Understanding China's economic slowdown.

Ideas for dealing with oceans filled with plastic.

Stating the obvious: The States With The Most Gun Laws See The Fewest Gun-Related Deaths

The single greatest threat is not Iran.... it's

...us.

Fifteen years ago, the prominent political analyst Samuel Huntington, professor of the science of government at Harvard, warned in the establishment journal Foreign Affairs that for much of the world the United States was “becoming the rogue superpower…the single greatest external threat to their societies.” Shortly after, his words were echoed by Robert Jervis, the president of the American Political Science Association: “In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States.” As we have seen, global opinion supports this judgment by a substantial margin.