October 25 Link Log

Well, you might have guessed...conjunctivitis is going around, and after Friday's tantrum about the misery of trying to read an "e-book," guess who was actually shedding tears off and on all day Saturday. No, I wasn't crying from pain or grief. No, my eyes haven't turned red yet; yes, they still feel tired and shed tears easily. So I come back online and get five and a half pages of e-mail, the majority of which is not even "bacon." Here's the rule, for those who may wonder: If it's legitimate headline news from a trusted source, but the headline is probably all I need to read, it's bacon. If it's from Zazzle after the sale ends, it's bacon. If it's from anybody using the family name "Trump" (regardless of which trusted Republican e-friend it's coasting on), if it's from a constitutional-law blogger but its actual content is just an ad for firearms (which the current workers can read for themselves, since they know their market and I don't), if it's an ad instead of a job offer from any of several writing sites that try to market writing services to their writers, or if it's a dated announcement that I would have shared if I'd got to it before it expired, it's just plain garbage. If it's a job offer from a writing site, or an e-mail or post or newsletter from Patricia Evans, Morgan Griffith, Hope Clark, Dan Lewis, Mat Staver, Tom DeWeese, Grassfire, Freedomworks, Publius Huldah, or a few less frequent but still trusted correspondents, it's at least worth opening...and unfortunately that category now includes Niume, which sends me an e-mail every flippin' time somebody thanks somebody else for commenting on a post I already read, though not every time somebody whose posts I want to follow publishes a new post. Only if it's about some sort of paying job do I make a real effort to read it the day I find it in the e-mail...but I have to open each and every bit of Niume-junk to find out when an e-friend's asked a question about something I posted, to which common courtesy obliges me to respond. If and when it becomes possible to filter Niume correspondence better, I certainly will.

Anyway, lots of links, in the Categories: Animals, Child Safety, Christian, Fun, Green, Immigration, Job Opportunities, Marketing, News, Nice, Obamacare, Obituary, Politics, Preppers, Psychology, Weird, Writing, Yougov, and Youth Behaving Well.

Animals 

Abby the Lab likes getting off the leash in a well fenced yard:

http://thebookofbarkley.blogspot.com/2016/10/someone-likes-this-no-leash-fenced-yard.html



Some shelters won't even let you meet a black cat in October. That means the word has gone out that a nearby satanic cult may be trying to "adopt" shelter cats to sacrifice and/or torture in Halloween rituals. I don't endorse torture, but I'd vote in favor of public hangings for cat murderers. However: you don't have to be either a Wiccan or a lesbian to do this. "Priscilla" the cat needs a good home. (For new readers, my online image is always a black cat with yellow eyes, and I officially encourage any legitimate animal rescuers who so choose to tag any black-haired, yellow-eyed foster cat or dog as either "Priscilla" or "King" depending on its gender.)

http://thevagabondtabby.tumblr.com/post/152277199108/aelfcynn-witchlesbiansthings-go-to-a-shelter

Petfinder links of the week...these two don't have yellow eyes, but "Aries," especially, is young enough that those baby-blue eyes are likely to change to who knows what color. I especially like that "Midnight" has been photographed on a veterinary examination table. Like he just might remember that indoor tables close to sinks are not the most pleasant things to sit on:

Adopt "Midnight" of Kingsport at https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/24559643

Closer to Washington, if you're in Washington:

Adopt "Aries" of Bethesda at https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/36509041

Or what about a Georgia "Peanut" in memory of Jimmy Carter? (Occasionally this computer remembers where it was first sold, which was apparently in or near Atlanta.)

Adopt "Peanut" of Atlanta at https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/35475384

Here's the "cat" anyone who harbors evil intentions toward cats should only meet. (Thanks to http://www.lifeofabusymommy.com/blog/the-amur-leopard , a post that suggests that the museum that owns this photo would like to see the photo "go viral.")



Gentle Readers, this web site will never use your mailing information for any purpose other than sending you something you've purchased, but if you share your zip code we'll post links to Petfinder pets near you.

Child Safety 

Trigger warning: another judge let another child molester walk.

https://www.change.org/p/impeach-judge-john-mckeon

Christian 

Today the Concerned Women of America join Ben Carson and this web site in prayer:

"
Pray for the Supreme Court.

Oh Righteous Judge, You Who judge the nations,
See the Supreme Court of our land,
And give us Justices who will give us true justice.
Guard us from men and women who would hand down
Evil judgments in the name of “progress.”
Appoint for us a Justice after your own heart.

Psalm 103:6 – “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.”
"

Fun 

What's your all-time favorite fortune cookie "fortune"? If you don't see mine, you know Wordpress is overreaching itself and fouling up its own blogs...again.

http://itsjustlife.me/fortunes-another-installment/

(Wordpress created a link directly to my comment, but it's not displaying the comment. +Beth Ann Chiles is asking for comments. Wordpress doesn't liiike me. Or her. Or the people who use Wordpress-hosted blog sites, generally.)

For those not on the Bing mailing list (who already know)...how did Snickers candies get their name?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snickers

There are currently four flavors of Snickers (one of which used to be known as Mars Bars in the U.S.; I was surprised when Adrian Mole needed to explain "Mars Bars" to younger readers). Ordinarily the tiny individually wrapped chocolate bars aren't my favorite because they're not a good bargain...but they are ideal for handing out to trick-or-treaters. If you plan to dispense candy at trick-or-treat (or trunk-or-treat) events, you can order treat-sized Trickers, er I mean Snickers, here in time for Halloween parties. (And give the kids a choice if they need to avoid the cereal, the peanuts, or the big crunchy almonds.)



Green 

Evil Monsanto stalls again on the EPA's review of whether "Roundup," which has been making me sick for more than two years now, and I've watched it making other people sick even though they didn't realize that it was, actually causes cancer. (Does it matter? "Roundup" may be causing Grandpa's memory loss, Grandma's rheumatism, your headaches, your mate's allergies, Junior's learning problems, and Princess's depression, to get worse now--whether or not it's also causing any of you to develop cancer later.)

https://usrtk.org/pesticides/epa-bows-to-chemical-industry-in-delay-of-glyphosate-cancer-review/

I can't watch the "webinar," so Tweeps will need to watch this one and share the fruits of the latest research about Zika virus, Lyme Disease, bedbugs, mosquitoes, and ticks:

https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/03881fbc61ee1c684ac87b605f06faf5

Immigration 

Thomas Sowell explains why I try to stay out of the question of "immigration." All immigration is not the same. All immigrants are not the same. Thomas Sowell is very, very good at organizing and presenting a sensible, logical idea. (He's also written a whole series of textbook-size studies of the history of immigration, assimilation, and ethnic minorities, worldwide...if you like history you want them all.)

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/441387/print



Job Opportunities 

This one is not for me--the job ad was e-mailed from a computer database into which I'd plugged "attended college in Kentucky," and the computer obviously overlooked "in 1992"--but it may be for some readers out there. Barnes & Noble (College) is a legitimate bookstore chain seeking to hire anyone, of any age, who is interested in working while finishing a degree at any of a few hundred colleges. I'm surprised they had openings left after posting the ad on campus notice boards, but glad if any college has completely filled its list of student labor jobs.

http://www.bncollege.com/

Marketing 

Attention corporations...stop spending those billions on those TV ads people mute out, and start paying me to create advertorials. I'll do it, just as +Kimberly Dalessandro will do it, if and when you pay me. Here's how bland and product-oriented I can be, if paid...yes, I received payment for that "listicle," one of the last pieces I wrote for Hirewriters. I've written effective real-estate copy for houses and store buildings in cities I never plan to visit, too. But forget about censoring the non-advertorial content off this site; the reason why blogs are displacing bland, sponsor-friendly, traditional media is that, compared with blogs that get personal and controversial, TV talk shows that stick to the topics corporations like are deadly boring. And, compared with real homes where people live and recipes people use and shopping choices people make, TV-fictional settings and cooking shows and shopping shows are deadly boring. You want blogs to help you sell your product, you have to pay bloggers to test it and give it honest reviews. No substitutes. Forget about the mass-media campaigns and start shelling out the $50 to $75 per individual blog post. Yes, that's in US$ if you want to reach the U.S. market, although this web site likes Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand dollars too, and has nothing against British pounds. And yes, that means getting your T-shirt onto women who don't wear lipstick, your screen-printed slipcovers into houses that don't have carpets, and your snazzy shoes onto people who are sticking to roomy-fitting multi-pocketed straight-leg jeans.

http://www.problogger.net/new-challenges-for-advertisers-and-why-bloggers-will-be-thier-new-best-friend/?

Would my cats actually pose with a litter box if we were paid to do that? Indeed they would! (Irene likes to pose, and she likes to be the first to use a new load of litter.)

http://www.mochasmysteriesmeows.com/2016/10/dont-let-litter-box-odors-come-between.html

Nice 

There’s just something about these “alll of humankind” thoughts…I alienate readers by not picking a side and sticking to it, actually. I don’t think any political party or religious denomination has a monopoly on truth, I don’t think one regional dialect of English necessarily sounds much worse than another, and I don’t think race even means anything more than anybody wants it to mean. Maybe it’s just the way “everything should be open to everybody” tends, in practice, to mean “everything should be boring so the stupid people can follow it and low-quality so the slobs can appreciate it, and so on.” Maybe, instead of shutting out people as such, we should be clear and forthright about what we do want to shut out: ideas that are inferior. And maybe we shouldn’t be ashamed of saying that these ideas are inferior, and why: If a web site exists to communicate thoughts and not just sell merchandise, yet it's cluttered with irrelevant memory-hogging pictures, it's an inferior web site. If a pair of boots are glued together and fall apart when they get wet, they're inferior boots. If a TV news show oozes bias in every clip, it's an inferior TV news show. (And yes, just possibly: if an orange-haired life form is a Bankruptcy Billionnaire rather than a polydactyl social kitten, it's an inferior orange-haired life form; if a brain lacks the moral, spiritual, and cognitive features that produce a healthy introvert personality, it's an inferior brain.) 

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1419/why-we-shut-people-out-and-what-to-do-instead-robert-waldinger/

Obamacare 

Patient-centered, and also cash-based. Don't settle for less, Republicans, Libertarians, Tea Parties...or even Democrats, since the Democrats I know want the best for their parents too. (Does Candidate Clinton still have living parents? Does having living parents make a difference to how people view Obamacare?)

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/obamacare-has-been-policy-failure

Obituary 

Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sharing:

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/23/1586127/-Tom-Hayden-has-died-76

News 

Want to watch Michelle Malkin on TV rather than following her through e-mail and Twitter? I'm the original "Put It Into Words" person, but for others who absorb information differently...

"

CRTV I’m hitting the streets with a ground-breaking investigative show exclusively for CRTV. I’m going to cover the issues the rest of the liberal and corporate media covers up—including crime, immigration, race, the culture wars, and education. You don’t want to miss this limited-time opportunity to pre-order a one-year subscription of CRTV for only $89. Use promo code MALKIN to claim your special pre-order price. Check out Michelle Malkin Investigates and the new CRTV here!

"

Politics (Election 2016) 

Scott Adams swings back toward Trump. Why am I not surprised?

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152293480726/the-bully-party

Glenn Beck dares to differ. I'm not surprised by this, either, but as a psych major I can't let his wording stand unchallenged. I don't seriously think that introversion, or even HSP introversion, is "on the autistic spectrum"; autism is a specific form of brain damage and some high-functioning autistics, notably Donna Williams, self-identify as extroverts once able to function "highly" enough to be tested. I'm not sure that extroversion truly will turn out to be "on the sociopathic spectrum" either; I'm not aware of scientific studies that have identified how sociopathic brains differ from other people's. I do think that, if extroversion is defined by the lack of an internal sense of honor/shame, then all extroverts definitely have one major thing in common with all sociopaths.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/10/24/glenn-beck-explains-why-he-thinks-donald-trump-is-a-sociopath/

Homosexual couple vote with their demographic socioeconomic class, rather than their demographic "sexual identity," and homosexual lobbyists hate them:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/10/24/gay-couple-supporting-trump-weve-gotten-death-threats-over-our-views-and-whos-harassing-them-you-ask/

Politics (General) 

Perry Willis explains the libertarian philosophy:

https://www.zeroaggressionproject.org/perry-willis/libertarian-worldview-questions/

Preppers 

This site was looking for a home-based editor. On consideration, I don't think I'd be the one to edit content for them; too much focus on the younger generation, too much Army language. But if you're not already an adventurer, if you're not already looking at Winter Without Electricity, have not already rebuilt your own water line and done some emergency first aid and fought a couple of fires and lived on what grows in your back yard and so on, you should read this site. Snarky comedy (especially the zombies) but also some prompts to get up and learn how to do this kind of stuff now, before the Internet goes down and the fits just generally hit the shan. (Note to site contract monitors: shan is a Chinese word meaning, among other things, spirits of confusion, though don't ask me how to say it so that it means that.) One dreadful day you are going to be the person who has the most life experience and is expected to help others cope, so Be Prepared!

http://combatmindset.com/

This vintage book really will help:



Psychology 

Why you can't read all the news, and shouldn't try. I do recommend subscribing to as many different newspapers as you can, one reason being that there are lots of cool Green frugal things to do with newsprint and another being that I was once seriously told I lost a job contract because I regularly read only six papers while the successful applicant read ten plus watching CNN, but seriously...if you're not following a story, the headlines are usually all you need to read. The title is obnoxious. The article itself qualifies as "nice."

http://combatmindset.com/2016/04/news-media-habit/

Not so nice...My preference would be, if a child doesn't even seem "different" before age nine, to stick with "quirky" as the label even if that child does show unmistakable autistic-spectrum brain damage. We need a good objective term that clearly defines the distinction between true autism (inability to communicate or empathize with other humans, at least without heroic efforts, because what the patient perceives is so different from what other humans perceive; formerly known as "idiocy," the condition is the result of verifiable brain damage and can be identified in people who show a lot of intelligence in coping with it), true stupidity (inability to remember to use a normally functioning brain), and eccentricity or quirkiness (inability to behave just like all the other children the same age in the neighborhood, or to want to). If a brain scan shows that someone has Alzheimer's-type brain damage but the person doesn't have memory loss, we don't reclassify that person as having Alzheimer's Disease. If a brain scan shows that someone has autistic-type brain damage but the person's behavior is strictly within the "quirky" category, we probably shouldn't reclassify that person as being autistic--no matter how much some greedhead school staff want to. It's too discouraging to the quirky child and to the parents of children who have real autism. (Note: even though it's been reposted at The Blaze, this post appears in an exemplary newspaper-column-type format, and behaves well. You should be able to read this one using almost any device.)

http://www.theblaze.com/the-wire/43307569/girls-autism-it-can-be-subtle-or-absent-for-some-at-risk/

Weird 

E-mail headline...I didn't dare open it because it looked spammy, although it came from a trusted source: "Madonna Offers Sex Act If You'll Vote for Hillary." No link, so maybe it doesn't belong in the Link Log, but where else would I put it? One comment, in case whoever posted that "offer" is checking Twingly for feedback: To whom is Madonna offering this sex act? (Because if she meant me, she'd know I'm more interested in cleaning the "Cat Jail" cage where Barnie-cat now lives...and if Madonna would do that it might induce me to do something in return.) Who else gets to watch? Does the beneficiary of the proposed sex act want to participate with the other person(s) watching? How many votes is The Donald getting out of this? Really, even Madonna ought to know by now that some things just don't belong in the news headlines.

(All right, I will put in a link. I call Candidate Trump "The Donald" when first names are flying about, because I happen to know a rescued greyhound who answers to the name of Donald. Donald is a very sweet, shy, gentle dog who does not deserve to have to have the same name as a well-known jerk and Bankruptcy Billionnaire. He's a bit of a challenge to walk (which to a greyhound means sprint), but for anyone who wants to run a marathon a greyhound might be the perfect pet. If you are a strong, athletic person who is up to the challenge of living with a big, fast, strong, tough, but super-polite dog who's been specially bred and trained so that it will almost never bark, shed, fight, or put its paws on anybody...Donald does cuddle with toddlers. He'd probably run rather than attack a mugger or burglar, but he might still be useful because many criminal types don't know this.

http://adopt-a-greyhound.org/ )

Meanwhile, the United Nations finds time to appoint a cartoon character as Honorary Ambassador. (Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for this link, too.)

http://www.comicmix.com/2016/10/24/mindy-newell-daughters-of-hippolyta/

Writing 

+Martha DeMeo introduces a blogger some of us may want to follow:

http://themarthareview.com/sitting-on-the-porch-sipping-coffee/

Jeff Goins tells Jerry B. Jenkins what it takes to make your NaNoWriMo project pay off:

http://www.jerryjenkins.com/4-things-real-authors-amateurs-dont/

Yougov 

Extra bonus points, enough that those with low standards for free stuff can get free stuff right away, if you're not already a member of Yougov and you sign up today. This is a legitimate, anonymous, non-spamming survey site; they pay promptly as promised, in my experience over several years, and send you only the surveys you can take to earn points toward free stuff. Possible rewards for taking surveys range from tax-deductible donations to charities, through meals at Applebee's, craft supplies from Michaels, books from Amazon, all the way to food, clothes, or furniture from Walmart.com or Target. How fast you earn points, after the initial promotional offer, depends on the answers you give to surveys. (I sort of regret not having "preferred" to take surveys in Spanish rather than English; I read both, and U.S. respondents who take surveys in Spanish are favored by several companies running shopping surveys these days.)

https://today.yougov.com/refer/brglBv6yISldXGeAQbYXBg/

Youth Behaving Well 

We join Ted Cruz in congratulating young Miguel Padilla. Who says all the great computer geniuses were baby-boomers?

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Fort-Worth-Student-One-of-10-in-the-World-to-Ace-AP-Computer-Science-Exam--397985011.html