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New month, new news. New Doctor, too.
Ah, and Area 51 officially exists now. Conspiracy theories undeterred, of course, but the Central Intelligence Agency does acknowledge it officially and without redaction.
Let's start with a gel that can replace a water shower, sold inexpensively, and which might be able to help with sanitary issues in developing countries.
Despite what the press hoped as as major shift in tone, the Bishop of Rome did not make any doctrinal changes to Catholicism's stance toward gay or lesbian people. "Who am I to judge?" is a refreshing position, and one more in line with the teachings, compared to Francis's predecessors, but it does not actually change much. And considering some of their more Protestant compatriots are reading the verses in very antisocial ways, there's still a long way to go for Christians as a whole to accept people they are commanded to accept.
Pennsylvania State University insists that all their employees meet arbitrary definitions of healthy or face a $100 USD penalty every month they fail.
Despite the fact that anti-sodomy statutes have been unconstitutional in the United States for ten years, East Baton Rouge deputies are regularly propositioning (for consensual private sex) and then arresting gay men under a "crimes against nature" law whose anti-sodomy section was invalidated in 2003. The Sheriff's Office insists that they are just enforcing the laws on the books in the state and that it's up to the courts to decide whether those laws apply. We are neither impressed not amused.
Things get worse in Russia, though, where violence is rampant and gay people are called the same name as pedophiles and almost 75 percent of people in the country believe gay people shouldn't exist in society.
On good news, The California state Supreme Court dismissed the latest challenge against the overturning of Proposition 8, ruling the federal order still applied statewide, even though the suit itself was not brought as a class action. Not that this will discourage the people who believe firmly that God mandates for all of us who we can and cannot enter into civil contracts with.
Parenting a possibly trans* person, done properly. Ware the comments, unless you like wading through concern trolling, trans* phobia, gender binary enforcement, and insistence that a child couldn't possibly know what pronouns he wants to be called at a young age.
The political reasons Republicans oppose the health care law - it gives the Democrats a giant advantage in elections. Even Newt Gingrich is telling the Republicans they have to have an alternative plan if they want to beat things like the Affordable Care Act.
Said party certainly isn't helping their case any by voting to blacklist NBC and CNN from moderating or hosting any Republican Party candidate debate for 2016, ostensibly because of a documentary featuring Hillary Clinton scheduled to air on both networks. In their place, the RNC thinks it would be a good idea to let the most venomous personalities of right-wing radio and television be the moderators instead. What could possibly go wrong?
Governor Christie of New Jersey vetoes a bill that would prohibit civilians from owning weapons originally marketed as excellent for bringing down jets and helicopters.
Finally, perspective often sucks, especially when perspective is telling you that you're still fighting the same fight from decades ago. And nowhere is that more apparent than North Carolina, where not only are precints being collapsed in heavily student and minority areas, new requirements put in place regarding acceptable identification intended to exclude students and minorities, but the local election board, handpicked by Republicans, has ruled that a student at a historically black college cannot run for city council because his collegiate address is not considered residency in the city. Oh, and since the requirements for voting are the same as running, he is getting his voting right challenged on the same ground. The entity responsible for this stunt thinks it will play well throughout the state, considering the makeup of most elections boards resemble the one in the experimental county. If only we had a federal law that required historically discriminatory places to run their voting law changes by the Justice Department...
In technology, A lock with a reprogrammable set of tumblers finds itself vulnerable to physical attacks. And our cars are increasingly hackable because we're giving them all sorts of wireless technologies. That is, when the recycling bins aren't collecting your smartphone data without telling you. (The company involved says they are only collecting aggregate data, but the city of London told them to stop anyway. One good hack would be enough to make it do much less aggregation and much more surveillance.)
Ah, did we also mention the National Security Agency violated the privacy of American citizens several thousand times last year, according to internal documents leaked by Snowden. I don't believe that even accounts for PRISM, either.
Speaking of privacy, Google doesn't believe it's violating privacy when all incoming email is processed so as to have targeted ads delivered with the mail. Google says it believes that the ad process is the same as processes like spam filtering or virus scanning, which happen routinely in email these days.
A school in the United Kingdom went to as much Linux on their desktops as they could. Once year on, it's still going well, although the learning curve was steep in figuring out how to get it to work correctly.
After more than six years of fighting with the IRS, a project to open-source voting software finally received its tax-exemption status.
In opinions, The dogmas of the progressive causes can be just as limiting as the dogmas of the conservatives. They do have the benefit, though, of not insisting that the world around them is wrong to criticize them for sheer ignorance. Usually.
Richard Dawkins is not a great person to be the face of atheism, based on his bigotry toward Muslims. And quite a few other blind spots involving women, too.
A letter explaining rape culture and how horribly triggering and consent-violating it is for a man to randomly hug and squeeze women at conventions without asking.
Last for tonight, you''re never too old to have toys or dolls.
Ah, and Area 51 officially exists now. Conspiracy theories undeterred, of course, but the Central Intelligence Agency does acknowledge it officially and without redaction.
Let's start with a gel that can replace a water shower, sold inexpensively, and which might be able to help with sanitary issues in developing countries.
Despite what the press hoped as as major shift in tone, the Bishop of Rome did not make any doctrinal changes to Catholicism's stance toward gay or lesbian people. "Who am I to judge?" is a refreshing position, and one more in line with the teachings, compared to Francis's predecessors, but it does not actually change much. And considering some of their more Protestant compatriots are reading the verses in very antisocial ways, there's still a long way to go for Christians as a whole to accept people they are commanded to accept.
Pennsylvania State University insists that all their employees meet arbitrary definitions of healthy or face a $100 USD penalty every month they fail.
Despite the fact that anti-sodomy statutes have been unconstitutional in the United States for ten years, East Baton Rouge deputies are regularly propositioning (for consensual private sex) and then arresting gay men under a "crimes against nature" law whose anti-sodomy section was invalidated in 2003. The Sheriff's Office insists that they are just enforcing the laws on the books in the state and that it's up to the courts to decide whether those laws apply. We are neither impressed not amused.
Things get worse in Russia, though, where violence is rampant and gay people are called the same name as pedophiles and almost 75 percent of people in the country believe gay people shouldn't exist in society.
On good news, The California state Supreme Court dismissed the latest challenge against the overturning of Proposition 8, ruling the federal order still applied statewide, even though the suit itself was not brought as a class action. Not that this will discourage the people who believe firmly that God mandates for all of us who we can and cannot enter into civil contracts with.
Parenting a possibly trans* person, done properly. Ware the comments, unless you like wading through concern trolling, trans* phobia, gender binary enforcement, and insistence that a child couldn't possibly know what pronouns he wants to be called at a young age.
The political reasons Republicans oppose the health care law - it gives the Democrats a giant advantage in elections. Even Newt Gingrich is telling the Republicans they have to have an alternative plan if they want to beat things like the Affordable Care Act.
Said party certainly isn't helping their case any by voting to blacklist NBC and CNN from moderating or hosting any Republican Party candidate debate for 2016, ostensibly because of a documentary featuring Hillary Clinton scheduled to air on both networks. In their place, the RNC thinks it would be a good idea to let the most venomous personalities of right-wing radio and television be the moderators instead. What could possibly go wrong?
Governor Christie of New Jersey vetoes a bill that would prohibit civilians from owning weapons originally marketed as excellent for bringing down jets and helicopters.
Finally, perspective often sucks, especially when perspective is telling you that you're still fighting the same fight from decades ago. And nowhere is that more apparent than North Carolina, where not only are precints being collapsed in heavily student and minority areas, new requirements put in place regarding acceptable identification intended to exclude students and minorities, but the local election board, handpicked by Republicans, has ruled that a student at a historically black college cannot run for city council because his collegiate address is not considered residency in the city. Oh, and since the requirements for voting are the same as running, he is getting his voting right challenged on the same ground. The entity responsible for this stunt thinks it will play well throughout the state, considering the makeup of most elections boards resemble the one in the experimental county. If only we had a federal law that required historically discriminatory places to run their voting law changes by the Justice Department...
In technology, A lock with a reprogrammable set of tumblers finds itself vulnerable to physical attacks. And our cars are increasingly hackable because we're giving them all sorts of wireless technologies. That is, when the recycling bins aren't collecting your smartphone data without telling you. (The company involved says they are only collecting aggregate data, but the city of London told them to stop anyway. One good hack would be enough to make it do much less aggregation and much more surveillance.)
Ah, did we also mention the National Security Agency violated the privacy of American citizens several thousand times last year, according to internal documents leaked by Snowden. I don't believe that even accounts for PRISM, either.
Speaking of privacy, Google doesn't believe it's violating privacy when all incoming email is processed so as to have targeted ads delivered with the mail. Google says it believes that the ad process is the same as processes like spam filtering or virus scanning, which happen routinely in email these days.
A school in the United Kingdom went to as much Linux on their desktops as they could. Once year on, it's still going well, although the learning curve was steep in figuring out how to get it to work correctly.
After more than six years of fighting with the IRS, a project to open-source voting software finally received its tax-exemption status.
In opinions, The dogmas of the progressive causes can be just as limiting as the dogmas of the conservatives. They do have the benefit, though, of not insisting that the world around them is wrong to criticize them for sheer ignorance. Usually.
Richard Dawkins is not a great person to be the face of atheism, based on his bigotry toward Muslims. And quite a few other blind spots involving women, too.
A letter explaining rape culture and how horribly triggering and consent-violating it is for a man to randomly hug and squeeze women at conventions without asking.
Last for tonight, you''re never too old to have toys or dolls.
