[links] Link salad wonders about the taste of fish

Gratitude and Stewardship — My friend and fellow cancer patient on living onward through the disease. I like this post.

Codex Seraphinianus — Wow. What a weird and cool piece of bibliographic art. (Via willyumtx.)

Reflections — These photos are gorgeous and bittersweet. (Thanks to AH.)

Study Shows Eating Bacon Will Make You Live Longer — According to Lisa Costello, in that case, I should live forever. (Thanks to garyomaha.)

Getting Into the Spirit — A former mental hospital in West Virginia, rumored to be a hotbed of paranormal activity, lets visitors search for their own ghost story to tell. (Thanks to Dad.)

Rare blood-filled mosquito fossil found — Wasn't this how Jurassic Park began?

If the Moon was at the same distance as the ISS — That's pretty intense. (Thanks to threeoutside.)

So Far, Smart Watches Are Pretty Dumb

For shame: Trolls defeat Scientific American, Popular Science

My Two Cents on Feminism and Miley Cyrus — Fascinating.

Jay Lake, Cancer, and God #8: The Intersection — My friend pastor daveraines continues his series about me, God and cancer. I'll write a more detailed response to this post sometime soon.

The "We're Not All Like That" project — A contrary view of the NALT project I was commenting favorably on yesterday. Since this perspective almost precisely mirrors my own view of so-called moderate Republicans, I do feel the power of the argument. (Via gwyd.)

State Troopers Say Maryland's AG Is a Terrible Backseat Driver — This guy is a seriously privileged asshole. And running for governor of Maryland as a Democrat. You're supposed to be the good guys… Sigh.

North Carolina: Marriage Ban Is Challenged — Even in a Red State moral desert like North Carolina, the right thing occasionally happens.

New Low in Election Fraud — This is what was supposed to happen in Ohio in 2012, which is why Karl Rove got so upset and walked off the air. The failure of the Republican plan to steal the election for Romney through polling fraud is what so many on the right now consider Obama's stealing of the election by the nefarious means of winning the popular vote. (Thanks to David Goldman.)

The “Pragmatic” Politics of Subtraction — Much of the party’s current toxicity with the public is the legacy of the last era of united Republican government. The Bush era was the political disaster from which Republicans have been recovering. Cruz isn’t helping to get the party out of the deep hole where the Bush administration put it, but driving his supporters out of the party would be even more politically self-destructive than the tactics that Cruz has been employing this year.

Here’s Why We Have a Debt Ceiling in the First Place

False equivalence: how 'balance' makes the media dangerously dumb — We've seen it in climate change reporting; we see it in shutdown coverage. Journalists should be unbiased, yes, but not brainless. Many of my conservative friends think "false equivalency" is a liberal myth. Which is a lot like my Christian friends thinking they're persecuted: an erroneous and self-valorizing response to the challenge of their unconscious privilege.

Rep. Van Hollen on House Rule Change on Shutdown Vote: “Democracy has been Suspended!” — Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) went viral in a YouTube video he released of his parliamentary inquiries on a change in House rules that forbade individual members to initiate a motion to open the Federal government. Only the Speaker of the House can now do so, in a highly undemocratic step. Yes, the House leadership did this. Think about that the next time you blame Obama, or even Republican extremists. (Though how you can tell "extremists" from the rest of the GOP is completely opaque to me.) The party leadership gamed the rules in a midnight change to keep the shutdown from being ended by an open vote.

The Dixiecrat Solution — Conservative activists are simply not willing to give up on the idea of ruling through extortion, and the Obama administration has decided, wisely, that it will not give in to extortion. Ah, the patriotic, democratic values of conservatives are always on proud display.

Republicans Aren't the Daddy Party Anymore — This is freaking hilarious. (Via David Goldman.)

50 years later, the ‘Fright-peddlers’ are still peddling fright — Conservatives never change. Really. The same angry paranoias on parade today were just as powerful fifty years ago, and just as wrong fifty years ago. Go read this, no matter what your politics.

?otD: Do you eat seafood?

---

10/15/2013
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo brain)
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (solid)
Body movement: 30 minutes (stationary bike)
Weight: 242.2
Number of FEMA troops on my block enforcing laws passed under the Constitutional process and fully subjected to judicial review: 0
Currently reading: n/a (chemo brain)