Why are they so afraid of the printed word?

 

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.

Banning books

Censorship at its most fearful... people might actually think:

In support of the right to choose books freely for ourselves, the American Library Association is sponsoring Banned Books Week (Sept. 25 - Oct. 2, 2010), an annual celebration of our right to access books without censorship. This year's observance is themed "think for yourself and let others do the same" and commemorates the most basic freedom in a democratic society -- the freedom to read -- and encourages us to respect others' freedom to choose.

Since its inception in 1982, Banned Books Week has reminded us that while not every book is intended for every reader, each of us has the right to choose for ourselves what to read, listen to or view. Thousands of libraries and bookstores across the country will celebrate the freedom to read by participating in special events, exhibits and read-outs that showcase books that have been banned or threatened.

The American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Association of College Stores sponsor Banned Books Week. The Library of Congress Center for the Book endorses the observance.

American libraries are the cornerstones of our democracy. Libraries are for everyone, everywhere. Because libraries provide free access to a world of information, they bring opportunity to all people. Now, more than ever, let freedom read @ your library! Open your mind to an old favorite or a new banned book this week.

If Cats reported the news

We report from Los Angeles with breaking news! Over to you, PiddyPat!



Um... PiddyPat?

Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - Taylor Lautner was horrified when a middle-aged female fan tried to take off her panties in front of him. The "Twilight: New Moon" star - who was named Best Male Fresh Face at the recent Teen Choice Awards - tried desperately to avert his eyes when the woman began stripping off so he could autograph her underwear.

We won't go into that! Over to you, Mr. KittyAngel!

A library in Wisconsin which came under fire for stocking books positively affirming homosexuality has now been branded "discriminatory" and condemned for "not being interested in diversity" because it has refused to stock books by so called ex-gay authors.

West Bend Library was condemned by the Christian Civil Liberties Union in June of this year for stocking Baby Be-Bop, a book aimed at young adults by author Francesca Lia Block in which the main character, Dirk, struggles with his sexuality and against homophobic attacks.

The group petitioned for the book, and books like it, to be removed. They failed. Now a group called the Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, or PFOX as they are more popularly known (a counter-balance to gay affirming PFLAG), are now claiming the following:

"Many of the gay books promote homosexual behavior to youth and are the subject of protests by concerned parents, whose request to have the books moved to the adult section were denied. Our requests that the Library balance some of its homosexual material for children with material written by ex-gays or with a heterosexual slant have been ignored."

Thank you for that excellent report. PittyPat has not recovered yet, so Mr. Fluffenkins, your report?

Sea levels could rise by up to 59 centimeters (23 inches) by the year 2100, according to a 2007 study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But over the past two years many scientists have said the report underestimated the threat posed by rising water levels.

Mark Siddall from Britain's University of Bristol along with other colleagues from Switzerland and the United States last week released a study showing that sea levels could go up between seven and 82 centimeters by the end of the century.

Sounds dangerous! Now for presidential news:

OBAMA WITH BABIES: See Who He's Held Since Becoming President (PHOTOS)

Loving gestures are always appreciated. How's the economy, Zippy?





U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt

Of course mayors can censor books that are offered at the local library!

Right? Isn't that what mayors do? Or is it what vice presidents do?

Fahrenheit 451

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Secret library of hope

12 books that can help face the new year. Rebecca Solnit's list is discussed in Asia Times Online:

Rebecca Solnit's secret library of hope
Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the People.
Aung San Suu Kyi, The Voice of Hope.
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves.
Charles Wilkinson, Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations.
Richard Walker, The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Alan Weisman, The World Without Us.
William Morris, News from Nowhere.
News from Nowhere Collective, We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism.
Marina Sitrin, Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina.
Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, The Speed of Dreams: Selected Writings 2001-2007.
Peter Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All.
Jonathan Isham and Sissel Waage, editors (introduction Bill McKibben), Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement.

Rebecca Solnit blurbed a lot of books this year, wrote the foreword for Marisa Handler's Loyal to the Sky, and provided editorial services on another book of her brother's, this time with conscientious objector Aimee Allison: the counter-recruitment manual Army of None. Her own book for 2007 is Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics, a collection of 36 essays including several that first appeared as Tomdispatches. She is the author of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.

The slimy pit of decadence and filth

Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors warns us of the demonic evils of .... libraries.



And Morse of the Republic of Sestakastan gives us a movie warning us of the dangers of unregulated teens.

I heard this woman on the radio

Trying to make her case for the removal of books from school libraries that she found threatening or offensive, ones that described sexual activity, incest, rape, drug use. Linda Lopez wants to remove books that do not agree with her translation of the Bible, which she says is the literal word of God.

Um... Has she READ the Bible? All that sexual activity, incest, rape, and drug use is in the Bible and how! Lots more about odd rules for preparing food, ways to treat slaves and wives, stoning people for transgressions we no longer think of as crimes.....

By her definition of threatening books, the Bible would be on the list.

And how on earth would she 'clean up' the library? There would be no books in it at all.

Start with your own family, Linda Lopez. You cannot sweep all difficult situations away from your kids, you cannot protect them from the world. The only thing you can control is your relationship with your kids. Faith should not be so weak that the parent must run ahead trying to change things, block things so it is never challenged. The children's religion should support them in the world not make them afraid of it. Religion should have muscles, should be able to stand up for itself. Ideas should strengthen it, not threaten it.

Isn't God supposed to be Truth?

Canadian terrorists read books?

Bryan of Why Now? catches the important work our Border Patrol is up to:

DERBY LINE, Vermont (AP) — Step through the front door of the Haskell Library and you’re in the United States.

Walk across the carpeted floor to the circulation desk and you’re in Canada. But if you sit down on the couch, you’re back in the U.S.

The 106-year-old Romanesque building, which straddles the international border, has enjoyed a kind of informal immunity from border restrictions through the years.

But a U.S. Border Patrol crackdown focusing on three unguarded streets linking Derby Line with Stanstead, Quebec, across the border, could soon change that.

What illegal activity? Like trying to walk over the border line drawn on the library floor without showing your passport each time?

I was always suspicious of those overly-friendly Canadians! They can't have been up to anything good!

Make sure no submarines can take it out, Georgie.

Bush plans for his library. It will be the bestest, better'n Clinton's OR Poppy's! There'll be a massive sign that proclaims to one and all Georgie's library cost millions, no make that billions of dollars!

But the doors won't open. National security, y'know.

Besides, how many copies of The Pet Goat can you have?

Update: cartoon. (Via Verse)