Link Log for January 29

Organized! Although I spent most of my online time writing long serious things on a super-slow computer with broken keys, today I did discover: Politics, Cars, Animals, Laughs, News of the Weird...

News of the Weird 

Sociologists finally conducted a study of Christian-phobia...concluding that, though not common in the U.S., it's most common among the elite class.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/29/they-should-be-eradicated-sociologists-reveal-shocking-results-of-christianophobia-research-and-a-cautionary-warning-for-conservative-bible-believers/?

Laughs 

What's your favorite preposterously bogus tourist tip or fun fact about Washington, D.C.?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/style-invitational-week-1109-fictoids-of-columbia--tell-us-some-fake-dc-trivia/2015/01/29/8ba92fbc-a5d0-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html

Writing

Here is a well recommended checklist of things this web site needs to do if we ever start making money. Some e-friends might use it too...

http://geekfeminism-feed.dreamwidth.org/336531.html

Animals 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/rare-and-elusive-sierra-nevada-red-fox-spotted-in-yosemite-for-first-time-in-nearly-a-century/?tid=sm_tw

Cars 

There is not, never was, and never will be a digital photo to go with a Yahoo article I wrote, many years ago, called "How to Roll Your Car and Walk Away Unhurt." I did that before digital cameras were invented. The secret hasn't changed: not air bags, and not shoulder straps (especially the ones that hook through a horrible, potentially eye-smashing flange on the side wall), but good, tight seat belts. (Plus windows that crank up and down, if you want to walk away unhurt.) This is the time of year when people re-test this information, and here's a fresh new story from snowy upstate New York with a vivid digital photo, Twittered by DriveSmartVa:

http://www.thedailystar.com/news/local_news/police-seatbelt-protected-driver-in-crash/article_af5d0200-cfd1-5439-9331-70220538f98f.html

Politics

First of all...I'm not going to try to copy what I just Twittered, but, for those interested in politics, http://connect.freedomworks.org is the site for discussions of U.S. politics, uncluttered with ads and random fun stuff. I'm seeing tons of political comments on Twitter (the system is revealing that quite a few elected officials Twitter or pay staff to Twitter even during legislative sessions), and I'd like to remind those interested in Virginia politics that I'll actually see your comments if you post them either on my page, http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382, or on your own page (which I'll follow). I get no particular benefit, except education--no points, no money--if you use Freedomworks. But I will get educated and become a better bill reader, able to post more cogent comments on bills like http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+HB2202 .

General advice for all state legislatures and members of Congress, endorsed by me:

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/%E2%80%9Cfree%E2%80%9D-federal-money-never-free

Congressman Morgan Griffith goes to school, and I finally manage to copy a link to a photo on Twitter (I failed to do that and spent more than an hour cleaning up the cyber-mess yesterday).

"Thx for having me! MT @CheckElementary: It's not everyday a US Congressman teaches you about the Legislative Branch! pic.twitter.com/GGawUC8808"

Finally...

Lots of other people sent in lots of nice links. I didn't get to them. I'm using what has to be the most inefficient computer I've seen in this century. You can not imagine how sincerely I regret this.