[links] Link salad forgot to pray for the angels

Game of Thrones Risk Game — Ok, this is cool. (Via willyumtx.)

Madame Swallowtail BDSM Pony! — Oh wow. (Thanks to Lisa Costello.)

Why My Favorite American Cities Have a Chinatown

The sun's strange shape revealed

The new totalitarianism of surveillance technology — If you think that 24/7 tracking of citizens by biometric recognition systems is paranoid fantasy, just read the industry newsletters.

An invitation to participate in a community of deception — Ah, the truthfulness of the righteous. False witness doesn't matter to the Christianist God. Not when there are liberals to hate.

The Barton Lies: The Religious Right’s Favorite ‘Historian’ Gets Hit with a Dose of the Truth — More on the Christianist false witness about American history. (Via Marta Murvosh.)

I wish my mother had aborted me — This is no 'I wish I'd never been born' howl of angst. I love my mother, and having an abortion would have given her a better life.

Your Lips Are Moving, but the Female Sound Barrier Prevents the Sound from Coming Out — (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Political Conservatism — scarlettina on the perils of expressing one's opinion, regardless of partisanship.

Conservative, gay rights group spar after shooting — As authorities revealed details about the Family Research Council shooting, the head of the influential conservative organization blamed the attack on "reckless rhetoric," but then delivered his own politically charged remark, saying critics gave the accused gunman "a license to shoot an unarmed man." Coming from the leader of one of the keystones of the forced pregnancy movement, which has routinely used incitements to violence for decades as a political tool, this is either the deepest hypocrisy, or bizarre irony. Or possibly just a massive case of psychological projection.

Kentucky lawmakers shocked to find evolution in biology tests — State wants KY-specific ACTs; a politician says of evolution: "Darwin made it up." It's become impossible to parody the willful ignorance of American conservatives. They descend into self-parody faster than the speed of reality-based snark.

AZ Woman Imprisoned -- After Producing Her Birth Certificate — Welcome to conservative America, where even being able to show your papers isn't enough to get you off the suspicion of existing while brown.

Mr. Romney, Here’s why Your Tax Returns Matter — Mitt Romney said that he had paid around 13% in taxes annually the past few years, calling false the charge by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that Romney won’t release his tax returns because they show he paid no income tax in the past decade. But, Romney was careful not to say that he had paid income tax in the past few years. And, it was income tax that Reid was talking about. Remember kids, in conservative rhetoric, poor people who don't pay income tax are lucky duckies, as the GOP likes to pretend that sales tax, gasoline taxes, payroll taxes and property taxes (through rent payments_ don't count. So why should those assorted non-income taxes count for Romney? More of that justly famed conservative intellectual consistency.

?otD: Did the angels forget to pray for us?

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8/17/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (WRPA)
Body movement: 0 minutes (resting as instructed prior to PET scan)
Hours slept: 5.5 (solid)
Weight: 235.6
Currently reading: The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski