“Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
—George S. Patton, June 1944 (via historical-nonfiction)
April 2012
34 posts
Racism: A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism'(via @Jezebel) →
jezebel.com
There’s been a lot of talk these last couple of weeks about “hipster racism” or “ironic racism”—or, as I like to call it, racism. It’s, you know, introducing your black friend as “my black friend”—as a joke!!!—to show everybody how totally not preoccupied you are with your black friend’s blackness. It’s the gentler, more clueless, and more insidious cousin of a hick in a hood; the domain of educated, middle-class white people (like me—to be clear, I am one of those) who believe that not wanting to be racist makes it okay for them to be totally racist. “But I went to college — I can’t be racist!” Turns out, you can.
Fertile Ground: Intro to Ecofeminist Thought | Bitch Media →
bitchmagazine.org
Learning: I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here's How (via @Lifehacker) →
lifehacker.com
Lifehacker reader Gabriel Wyner was tasked with learning four languages in the past few years for his career as an opera singer, and in the process landed on “a pretty damn good method for language learning that you can do in limited amounts of spare time.” Here’s the four-step method that you can use, too (and you don’t have to invest hundreds in a language course like Rosetta Stone).
Georgia Governor Signs Welfare Drug Testing Bill Into Law
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal approved a bill on Monday evening that will soon require all applicants to the state cash assistance program to pass a drug test. The law will face legal challenges from Georgia civil liberties groups. The Social Responsibility and Accountability Act, as the law is called, will take effect on July 1st. It closely resembles a Florida law that in October was blocked by a federal district judge citing “constitutional infringement.”
At least two-dozen other states are now considering laws that would require TANF applicants to undergo drug tests before receiving benefits. The laws have gained widespread support despite scant evidence of a problem to be solved. In the four months when Florida’s law was in play before it was blocked in October, only 2.6 percent of applicants tested positive for drugs.
Humble Mumble: Introducing the Humble Botanicula Debut! →
blog.humblebundle.com
The newest Humble Bundle has arrived: the Humble Botanicula Debut!
Be sure to watch it in HD!Pay what you want for Amanita Design’s brand new game, Botanicula, along with Machinarium and Samorost 2. If you pay more than the average price, you’ll also get …
Fertile Ground: A Witch's History Lesson | Bitch Media →
bitchmagazine.org
“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest and best things you will ever do.”
—Stephen Fry
School Daze: More On The Daily Show’s Tucson Ethnic Studies Story →
racialicious.com
Truly one of the funniest Daily Show segments in recent history. Click the link for the video itself.
The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal exposed the closed-mindedness behind the city of Tucson’s ban on ethnic studies in the most elegant way possible: let a member of the local school board make himself look like as much of a fool as possible. Two days after the report aired, the fun part is starting: watching people try and distance themselves from the scrutiny Madrigal has forced upon the issue.
Pill Baby Pill: Want to Really Screw the Economy? Limit Birth Control and Abortion.(via @Jezebel) →
jezebel.com
A new wave of Republican lawmakers barged into office after the 2010 elections on promises of fiscal responsibility and a reigning in of government spending. Jobs. The economy. Econo-jobs. While everyone was Tea Partying their pants off and puking star spangled vomit into the potted plants, eager for the tax breaks that never came, newly-elected conservatives wasted no time to get to what they were really after: women’s reproductive rights. And it turns out that attacking birth control and abortion rights is a really great way to totally fuck the economy up.
I was a teenage troll →
blog.indexoncensorship.org
The internet can be a scary place. In my early days of using the web, I passed my angry pubescent days innocently trolling chat rooms powered by America Online, mostly to harass fans of shopping mall punk Avril Lavigne.
I spent my free time accosting what I assumed were fellow misguided teenagers, even though my own music library was filled with the questionable sounds of Linkin Park, Kittie, and Papa Roach. Whilst undoubtedly irritating, my joy in prank calling restaurants and angering people online was mostly a benign past time. Had I been a teenager in Arizona today, my antics could have landed me with a criminal record before I even reached high school.
My 1st gen iPod Touch is dying :(
I seek your advice, interwebs. I need a new mp3 player. Gimme suggestions. Something that won’t break the bank would be awesome.
“Languages embody the intellectual wealth of the people that speak them. Losing any one of them is like dropping a bomb on the Louvre.”
—MIT Linguist Ken Hale
