Link Log for April 13

Today's Categories include a new one: Hating Widows. (From now on, anything about same-sex marriage to which this web site may link, which won't be much, goes into this category. Whether people are advocating admitting same-sex couples to the unconstitutionally  privileged category of married people, or advocating keeping them out, unless they focus on removing the unconstitutional privileges from marriage they're perpetuating discrimination against widows.) Also, more pleasant things: Animals, Anniversary, Anti-Abortion Strategies, Disability Issues, Faith, Food, Fun Facts, Funny Things, Guy-Watching (or should that go under Funny Things?), Happy Things, Medical Care, Phenology, Politics, Vaccines.

Animals 

Bureaucratic overreaction to the pestilence of never-removed signage in D.C....this story needs to go viral.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/13/couple-forced-to-take-down-missing-dog-fliers-after-being-threatened-with-massive-fine/?

So, come to think, does the image of the missing dog, even though an awful lot of dogs look like him.



Wild felines generally are repelled by human odor. On the other hand, they can seldom resist chasing small objects that move along the ground. (Both instincts are observed in domestic kittens.) The tot who fell in among these cheetahs was lucky. (Yes, it's The Blaze, but there's a terrific close-up cheetah image.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/12/mom-dangled-2-year-old-son-over-cheetah-pit-when-he-fell-in-zoo-says/?

Raintree Annie celebrates spring with, among other things, my favorite kind of iris flower--the one I see in my mind when I think of iris flowers--and also ducklings, and a foal...

http://raintreeannie.hubpages.com/hub/lovespring

Why we should read the labels when buying pet food:

http://dailytwocents.com/are-by-products-bad-ingredients-in-pet-food/

Anniversary 

A sad anniversary is coming up...the anniversary of a day advocates of civil liberties and limited government once claimed as our own.

http://junkscience.com/2015/04/13/waco-massacre-federal-police-jack-cashill-discusses/

Anti-Abortion Strategies 

"Or open the door for self-employment...especially working from home, when a new baby is involved! My big problem for the past ten years has been neighbors who've been deliberately mystified into believing that only "employers" can pay people for work they do. They need work done--many of them are elderly and/or disabled. They'll even admit they need help to members of the immediate family, who, they expect, "should" do everything for them "for love" until the dutiful mate or child breaks down and dumps them in a nursing home (and the local nursing homes are fairly horrible places, according to a state committee as well as me). But, pay a neighbor who needs the money even for one day of respite care per week while the dutiful mate or child runs errands? Very few dare...because we have a plague of social workers filling people's minds with the evil idea that "If you're not a full-time employer and haven't taken out insurance on the person, always and only bad things will happen!!!" (My comment on http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/3626250.html? is true about me, personally, and it's also true about too many young women who think they can't afford babies.)

Disability Issues 

People with disabilities need reliable, accessible, and affordable public transportation. This man in Denver speaks for a lot of bus riders in a lot of other places. If you don't live in Denver, you might want to sign his petition anyway, and share it with your local public transportation people.

https://www.change.org/p/rtd-board-of-directors-no-fare-increase-in-2016-fixrtd

Faith 

Are you more likely to take risks--or less so, depending on what the risk is!--when you contemplate God, or the Universe, or Eternity, or The Good?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/13/increased-exposure-to-the-concept-of-god-has-an-unexpected-impact-on-risky-behavior-researchers-claim/?

Food 

Big improvement over whipped cream:

http://fun-food-network.blogspot.com/2015/04/marshmallow-flower-cupcakes.html

What does food have to do with the health care crisis? Ask Dr. John McDougall:

http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=5e58f59d97611f910916b6276&id=6e18170a81&e=4d57a9fdfb

...and here are some delicious McDougall Recipes:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2015nl/mar/recipes.htm

Fun Facts 

"While Finns are aware that Nokia is often mistakenly thought to be a Japanese company, this misconception is viewed forgivingly but with pity. They are proud that Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux, is a Finn."

http://finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=160036&nodeid=37598&culture=en-US

Funny Things 

Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sharing this link...too much adult content for this web site even to spell out the URL, but any woman over about age 22 will chortle.

Will robot technology ever make these questions relevant in real life? asks the creator of "Robots Read News." I can't picture it, but then, forty years ago, I didn't picture myself writing on a computer...

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/116298066321/human-rights-for-robots

Seriously, although Dave Barry shared it and although the story as it unfolded is funny...one should never throw anything at the driver of any motor vehicle. It could cause a wreck.

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/national/florida-man-throws-candy-bar-bus-dr/nkq7R/

Guy-Watching 

A friend of Mei Liang Hoe's thinks Prince Fazza is more appealing than the British princes. Meh...I am posting this from a college campus. A lot of the college boys have that sloppy unshaved look, and on most of them it looks about as good, or as bad, as this.

http://themillionhair.tumblr.com/post/116249035754/wikatiepedia-why-are-people-so-obsessed-with

Happy Things 

Mei Liang Hoe shares a prompt to blog about five things that make you happy:

http://themillionhair.tumblr.com/post/116266937224/when-you-receive-this-list-5-things-that-make-you

Mine: (1) Getting paid.
(2) Buying any of the multitude of things I've been putting off buying until I get paid...for enough years that the short list of things to buy when I get paid, again, or more, is actually quite a long list.
(3) Violets. (Scroll down to see four of the five species of violets I found yesterday.)
(4) Kittens. (Heather says they're too little to be photographed yet. I've not even counted toes.)
(5) Dogwood and redbud trees, which finally started blooming, in my part of the world, yesterday.

Hating Widows 

Lloyd Marcus here says...just what conservative widow-haters have been saying to provoke the charge that they just don't like same-sex couples. That's not even the issue, man. That is the smoke screen! The benefits of marriage consist of a relationship with one other person, with that person's relatives if possible, and with God if you believe in God. Any other "benefits of marriage" built into our legal system amount to discrimination against unmarried people, a category that will one day include almost half of all those who have been married. Most definitely me, and perhaps also you.

http://www.lloydmarcus.com/2015/04/the-left-love-means-never-having-to-say-anything-is-wrong/

Not, of course, that any member of this web site will resume buying anything from Starbucks any time soon. (Goes without saying...Creative Tightwads don't pay five dollars for a cup of coffee!)

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/04/no-more-starbucks-ahead.html

And, while we're about it, one in the eye for the h--er um anti-widow agitators demanding that people who disapprove of their weddings cater to the same. (And a floral arrangement for a wedding is a counterpart to emergency care in a hospital, so refusing to cater to any wedding of which one might disapprove is the same kind of discrimination as offering emergency care to only one race. Not.)

http://reason.com/blog/2015/04/06/why-making-people-who-hate-you-serve-you#.c4cpwj:4oGS

Medical Care 

I commented because he didn't say enough. If the goal is to reduce the cost of medical care, the first step is to boot the insurance industry out of it. The cost of medical care is much, much lower than the cost of medical-care-plus-keeping-the-insurance-industry-afloat.

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/04/health-insurance-robber-barons.html

Phenology 

Elizabeth Barrette shares some delightful Illinois phenology:

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/3625658.html

Politics 

"Can Rand Paul talk to women without getting mad?" I'd be very surprised if he couldn't talk to me without getting mad.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/12/what-rand-paul-has-done-in-prior-interviews-left-him-being-forced-to-defend-his-ability-to-talk-to-women/?

Publius Huldah, short and sweet:

https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/ph-explains-american-vs-european-views-on-relation-between-people-and-civil-government/

Vaccines 

Said it before, but we'll say it again: Calculate the risks. If a disease is likely to be fatal and a child is likely to be exposed to it, this web site recommends vaccination for it. If a disease is as, well, measly as measles, it might be healthier for children to have it during a year when they can enjoy some time off school.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/13/mom-changes-her-anti-vaccine-stance-after-all-seven-of-her-kids-get-viral-disease/?