Link Log for July 13

Since I had to come to Big Stone Gap anyway, why not do a Link Log for today? Here's the latest batch of fun stuff I wouldn't be able to find while using the Sickly Snail. (Fair warning--some of these links may not work for your computer either.) Categories: Animals, Books, Education, Food, Girls, History, Pills, Politics, Privacy, Psychology, Sad, Sports, Thank a Veteran, Weird, Work Online.

Animals 

Behind closed doors, the Humane Society wages its #WarOnPets...The law used to be that if a dog bit a human, it had to be shot, not through the head, and then tested for rabies. That was a good, humane, reasonable law--dogs tend to repeat behavior they've been allowed to do before. But the Humane Society wants money. Money can be extorted from dog owners by locking up dogs that would otherwise be shot...and killing them by torture with a horrific disease that will infect other dogs if the infected dogs are "rescued."

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/13/dog-owner-hit-record-on-her-camera-inside-an-animal-shelter-what-she-captured-is-disgusting/?

Because people love their dogs. People miss some dogs (and cats, and horses, and chickens) as much as they miss human friends and relatives. That's why the Bible set the penalty for killing someone's pet as equal with the penalty for killing a human. +Ruth Cox remembers losing her dog Scratch, with empathy, though also with opportunities to purchase sympathy cards, for people who've lost pets:

http://www.dogpawsitivetidbits.com/2015/07/from-firstborn-puppy-to-dog-loss-grief.html

(The Bible addresses this issue in 2 Samuel 12. Pertinent verses copied from http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/2-Samuel-Chapter-12/:

² The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:

³ But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.

⁴ And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.

⁵ And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:

⁶ And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.

Note the clear distinction between animals that were bred for the table and animals that were kept as pets, even when the animals are of the same species.)

Wilder animals: Liz Klimas shares proof that black leopards really do have spots. (The way our Imp, whom anyone would describe as a black kitten, is actually almost completely white underneath her black fur...and she has about as many white hairs to the square inch as I have, too.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/13/look-scientists-figure-out-a-way-to-reveal-a-black-leopards-secret-spots/?

Smaller wild animals: Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sharing the link to this useful post about the dark swallowtail butterflies in the Eastern States.

http://louisiananaturalist.blogspot.com/2009/06/four-dark-swallowtails.html

Health tips for friendly animals:

http://www.dogpawsitivetidbits.com/2015/07/au-naturel-dog-essentials.html

Long as I'm in Big Stone Gap, I might as well give a shout to the cutest kittens in town. These kittens are fostered by a bookstore/cafe owned by Quakers, and if they're not quite social cats, they certainly do get "socialized to humans." They will walk up and tell you whether you should take them home along with your books and cookies.

https://wendywelchbigstonegap.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/ruth-thinks-certain-things-would-be-really-nice/

Books 

I've not read Go Set a Watchman, yet, so this review was interesting:

http://daddytypes.com/2015/07/10/atticus_life_complicated.php

Education 

Why Congressmen Griffith and Hurt, and Senators Kaine and Warner, should vote "no" to S.1177 and HR5...they seem to allow school choice, but they don't.

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/07/s-1177-intrudes-on-homeschoolers.html

Food 

For summer grilling, here are two vegan burger recipes endorsed by the McDougalls. (If this link doesn't work for you, e-mail me, mentioning "McDougall Burger Recipes," at the address at the bottom of this page; I'm saving these as an e-mail.)

Temporary link to burger recipes.

Here's something to do with all that surplus zucchini lying ahead of us, recommended by Elizabeth Barrette:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gluten-free-zucchini-brownies-recipe

+Sandy KS promises a recipe for sneaking broccoli into tomato sauce:

http://challengeyourwriting.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-z-emotion-challenge-sneaky-surprise.html

This blog is actually written in Dutch...I think Google wanted us to know that a button in the top right corner of the page automatically translates it into readable, though imperfect, English. Many food pictures; many pictures of a beautiful blonde blogger.

http://hungryforhealthyfood.com/lepeltje-lepeltje/

Girls, Cute 

Speaking of cute girls, Sharona Schwartz shares this rare find--probably the last pictures that will ever be published in which this tall, thin blonde models an authentic blue-collar home and lifestyle...

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/12/im-not-spoiled-israeli-girl-was-so-poor-she-had-no-bed-until-an-unlikely-meeting-changed-her-life/?

History 

For all the Confederate flag wavers and phobics out there, James Jackson shares an essay on some of the real causes of the War Between the States. (Northerners often try not to hear this, now, but in 1860 ending slavery was not a popular enough cause in the North to have been used to rally the troops. The Northern working class resented competition from ex-slaves about as much as their Southern counterparts did. Abraham Lincoln was a humanitarian and disapproved of slavery, but he said, publicly and repeatedly, that he was not in favor of "equality of the races." The Emancipation Proclamation, a battle strategy intended to create unrest and disorder in the Confederacy, didn't even apply to slaves in states that remained in the Union; slaves in Maryland were emancipated after the war. So what was the war about? Money, of course.)

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/07/southern-secession.html

Freedom Fighters of America, whose slogan is "Making the World Colorless," share this link to an illib'tard Northerner who can't stop fighting the Civil War. My comment: "I'm a Daughter of the Confederacy who's not waved a Confederate flag for many years. This effort to blame the flag for the effects of drugs is making me wish I had one. We all need to agree that the use of force is wrong--even and especially where the same goal could be achieved by seeking consent. And in my part of the South, this really does seem a bit like a husband beating his wife just'cos he's bored with kissing her and having her kiss him back. Or like the torment inflicted on Ruby Bridges and why-does-nobody-even-me-remember-the-little-White-girl's-name, and the other kids, "in order to desegregate the schools," when Berea College and a few other brave private schools had achieved peaceful and even joyous desegregation, years ago."

http://freedomfightersofamerica.blogspot.com/2015/07/liberal-radio-host-thom-hartmann-should.html?

Then Kaitlyn Schallhorn tells us about people who just don't learn from history...

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/13/the-new-social-media-campaign-thats-encouraging-people-to-trespass-on-private-property-and-tear-down-confederate-flags/?

Ooohhh!!! Does this web site have any readers who are young/clueless enough to fall for this? A flag didn't make Dylann Roof go into a church and kill people. Drugs did! Idiot-boy was on drugs! If you want to prove that young people of African descent are criminals, which this web site does not recommend, you'd want to destroy the pills! 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/10/fbi-says-alleged-charleston-church-shooter-should-not-have-been-able-to-buy-gun/?

Pills

A very cautious study admits that, apart from drastically increasing the risk that harmless depressive patients will become violent psychopathic murderers, some antidepressant drugs may also harm babies born to pregnant users:

http://acsh.org/2015/07/some-ssris-but-not-others-associated-with-birth-defects/

Politics 

Although the Sickly Snail doesn't actually open Twitter (it will sometimes, not always, let me use a Twitter button at a web site, e.g. Live Journal), I've signed up with the Heritage Action's Twitter team. This is similar to Popvox, but more visible because it's Twitter. If a selection of right-wing suggestions for Tweeting doesn't ruffle your feathers unbearably, and you Twitter often, you might want to join this web site too. (When the window opens, you'll be invited to type in your zip code and see what the Heritage Foundation types are Tweeting to your people in Washington. You can edit before re-Tweeting, and will probably want to.)

http://heritageaction.com/

What was on the top of their list today: There's actually a bill that's been written to protect the rights of people who believe that same-sex relationships aren't Real Marriage. I support these people's rights...even though I also think they're wrong-headed. What we need is a bill to prevent discrimination against those who aren't married (the group that will ultimately include half of those who really were married), and/or against those who are married to people who aren't qualified to be their heirs or caretakers.

http://heritageaction.com/press-releases/first-amendment-defense-act-gains-momentum-in-house/

On Friday, I chortled over a post where +Theresa Wiza was making fun of a radio preacher who bloviated that if we accept homosexuality we might as well accept bestiality. I've heard that line often enough that the picture in my mind is of church members debating whether or not to change the rules of the church, with no noticeable effect on the way these people behave toward anyone who's not a member of their church. (Of course, a lot of these people minimize social contact with anyone who's not a member of their church...outsiders should probably be grateful; most of the ones I know have absolutely nothing else to be snobs about.) Theresa Wiza was visualizing a Satanist congregation sacrificing a helpless homosexual teenager, which is ridiculous enough to be funny. But seriously... although the position of this web site is that the old Communist Party has achieved, and is achieving, many of its goals that were and still are much more dangerous than the silliness of same-sex marriage:

http://sonsoflibertymedia.com/2015/06/the-supreme-courts-marriage-decision-communist-goal-realized/

...And, yes, this is where the idea of people, not just respecting each other's privacy, not just recognizing that homosexuality appears to be one of the less drastic reactions to overcrowding observed in most animal species, but celebrating this nasty business of people identifying themselves in sexual terms and shoving their sexuality in everyone's face, is leading.

http://www.bb4sp.com/university-academics-say-pedophilia-is-natural-and-normal-for-males-to-be-aroused-by-children/

...And what about males who are aroused by the whole idea of "overcoming resistance"? Should we all back off Bill Cosby, who's too old to be dangerous any more even if he's guilty, and form a dogpile on Terry Bean?

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/07/gay-pedophile.html

Is your Inner Republican fired up yet? Here's another conservative gathering...Dinesh D'Souza...at the Beach.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virginia-vision-pac-presents-dinesh-dsouza-tickets-17283576643?ref=ecount

Privacy 

Scott Adams is obviously trying to attract comments here:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/123983117521/the-privacy-curve

Psychology 

Liz Klimas shares a report on the good side of bad dreams. (Do people have nightmares and not find them frightening? I know that as a child I used to have Real Nightmares--dreams whose content wasn't necessarily even disturbing, but which were accompanied by feelings of terror and sometimes physical symptoms--because I used to eat before bedtime. As an adult I don't have that feeling in my dreams any more, even if, on waking, the content of a dream does seem ominous, or bizarre, or like a horror movie. Sometimes I dream that I am watching a horror movie. But without the panic.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/13/have-you-had-a-bad-dream-recently-heres-how-it-might-actually-benefit-your-health/?

+Theresa Wiza on breaking habits:

http://philosophicalmusingsandinsights.blogspot.com/2015/07/how-to-get-rid-of-annoying-habits.html

+Lyn Lomasi presents Amelia Lockhart on self-motivation:

http://www.lifesuccessfully.com/motivational-friends/self-motivation-and-the-danger-of-making-grand-plans

Elizabeth Barrette explains why cognitive/behavioral therapy isn't as popular as it used to be. I think she's right. People who benefit from cognitive therapy, as found in the two posts linked above this one, no longer need to go to a psychotherapist and be tagged as having problems in order to get the benefit of cognitive therapy. Professional cognitive/behavioral therapists, like professional typists, are working much less than we used to work--because what we did does work, so well that most people are now doing it all by themselves.

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/3717711.html

So here's a softer, more emotional approach...

http://planetsark.com/transformative-practices/amazing-things-are-growing/

Sad 

But in a good, healing, empathetic sort of way. (New readers: this blog is about cancer survivors, and this post is about one of them who's not survived.)

http://thesmittenedlife.blogspot.com/2015/07/thoughts-on-bailey-death.html

Sports 

Serena Williams rocks. Big, busty, Black, old-for-an-athlete, and just possibly the best living tennis player on Earth. (You didn't think The Blaze would go for a story like that? Live and learn.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/11/serena-williams-wins-her-sixth-wimbledon-championship/?

Thank a Veteran 

...but be careful about how you do it. Note that this report on the Wounded Warrior Project doesn't claim that the charity is bogus; it just claims that WWP's allocation of funds collected is more like those of other kinds of charities (and churches) than like the hypothetical ideal charity where all the work is done by volunteers and every penny goes straight to the official beneficiary group. (Note, also, that this is an obnoxious web site, with tough and nasty pop-ups. I apologize. Don't open this link if your computer is vulnerable.)

http://bulletsfirst.net/2015/07/03/proof-that-wounded-warrior-project-uses-less-than-52-of-donations-to-help-vets/

+Allen West Republic  posted this graphic on Google +. It's an interesting graphic and slogan, even though the fact is that I have seen homeless illegal aliens. (So has Andrei Codrescu; the Haitian squatter group he described in Road Scholar are hard to forget.) The point is that, even though some of them were messed up before they even joined the military service and are hopelessly messed up now, our veterans shouldn't have to spend the rest of their lives panhandling.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+AllenwestrepublicAWR/albums/6170909405526220753/6170909404659321442?pid=6170909404659321442&oid=103421917501836640130

So what should they do? I don't know. Right Hand Man was described as "half a man," "half blown away," post-Vietnam, but he's been working (with one good hand) and walking around (with a bad back, bad knee, barely noticeable limp) ever since. Some people who didn't go through nearly so much, who are in much better physical condition, just didn't go to wherever they went with as much mind, character, and personality as Right Hand Man always had. And they came back worse off than they were when they went. All this web site can do is salute those better-off veterans, like Adayahi and like +Coral Levang , who try to look out for the worse-off ones.

Weird 

Hospitals are demanding that babies be given names at birth, now? How odd. They can't identify the babies by the names of their parents? If I were going to give birth in a hospital, I'd want the staff to call me "Mrs. King" (or maybe "Mrs. Privacy," since I've called my Significant Other "Mr. Privacy") and identify the baby as "Infant King" or "Infant Privacy, Born 7-13-15 2:00 p.m." Granted that my family tend to start sifting out combinations of given and family names that are already in use, and picking the best of what's left, as soon as there's any suspicion of a new baby on the way. But it's never too soon for people outside the family, like hospital staff, to start referring to people by their family names and titles.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/13/heres-why-you-probably-want-to-have-a-name-ready-for-your-baby-when-its-born/?

Work Online 

Will Microworkers work for you?

http://onlinemoneydairy.blogspot.com/2015/07/microworkers-payment-and-topcashback.html