Link Farm and Open Thread: Please Vote For Us Edition

Not many links this week — I’m really pressed for time. But feel free to leave links of your own (including self-links, and to say what you wanna say!

  1. The annual Locus poll. Please feel free to go over and vote for the three (3!) stories that Rachel Swirsky has listed (one under best novella, two under best short story), to vote for N K Jemisin for “Best New Novel,” and to write in “Hereville” for “Best YA Novel.” And I suppose you could also vote for other stuff, too, if you like that stuff better. :-) Anyone can vote — you don’t have to be a subscriber.
  2. Mythcommunication: It’s Not That They Don’t Understand, They Just Don’t Like The Answer Really excellent, research-based post about “no means no.” It’s true that no means no — but so do lots of other things, and rapists understand that, even though they pretend not to. I highly recommend this post.
  3. Racism as a Stylistic Choice and other Notes | The Comics Journal Outstanding article about racist images in historic comic books (and how should we judge them now?), with a lot of discussion of Eisner’s use of racist images.
  4. My friend Jake’s excellent comic strip “Modest Medusa” is down due to database problems at DrunkDuck, but you can still read it at Webcomics Nation!
  5. Cutting Medicaid means cutting care for the poor, sick and elderly
  6. I’m quoted, and Hereville is mentioned, in the final paragraphs of this Village Voice article about the economics of cartooning. I come off sounding like the very soul of a plucky young striver! The author, by the way, is big-name poliblogger Roy
  7. Drawing a woman from the inside to the outside.
  8. I don’t blame Obama for being unable to change Washington. I don’t blame him for being unable to pass cap-and-trade. But I blame him for ceasing to try.”

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20 Responses to Link Farm and Open Thread: Please Vote For Us Edition

  1. 1
    Raimo says:

    A school building was fenced off with barbed wire in Espoo, Finland in 1908 (see the picture in the link). Swedes fenced off school buildings with barbed wire, in order to ban children the access to a school.

    The Swedish government was responsible for the most iron ore the Nazis received. Kiruna-Gallivare ore fields in Northern Sweden were all important to Nazi Germany.

    These massive deliveries of iron ore and military facilities from Sweden to Nazi Germany lengthened World War II. Casualties of the war have been estimated at 20 million killed in Europe. How many of them died due to Sweden’s material support to Nazi Germany, is not known.

    http://www.thoughts.com/raimo/case-sweden

  2. 2
    RonF says:

    I wonder how many of you have heard of the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious? Here, here, and here are some links to start you off.

    So, let’s see. The ATF, at the direction of Atty. Gen. Holder’s Justice Department, deliberately provided automatic weapons to Mexican drug gangs. Over the objections of their own agents. The concept being to trace them and build a legal case that would take down a drug cartel. Oh, and let’s not tell the Mexican government.

    What a great idea! What could possibly go wrong?

    Now, there has been some notice in the MSM. But imagine what we’d be seeing if this was the Bush Administration. Headlines, cartoons, screaming blogs. It would dominate the 24/7 news cycle. This is the kind of crap that feeds the “MSM/liberal bias” meme.

    For that matter, where’s the Democratic leadership in the Congress? Isn’t this a bit much for them to swallow? Is the President and his entire cabinet immune from criticism regardless of the circumstances? Even when American law enforcement agents are killed using guns provided to law breakers in a foreign country by an American law enforcement agency?

    Finally, here is some speculation on why the Mexican government hasn’t had much to say about this. And I do stress “speculation”, BTW.

  3. 4
    Robert says:

    I agree with the National Review about media piracy!

    Of course you do. With increasing sales of your books, you’re joining the ruling class and will start endorsing their fascist ideas more and more often. Sellout.

  4. 5
    Ampersand says:

    That’s my plan!

  5. 6
    Robert says:

    I voted for you and NK and Rachel, by the way. And I tagged the RAH bio in the nonfiction category, and the Poul Anderson collection, and Baen as best publisher because I like Toni W. I hope this explosion of support from right-wing fandom doesn’t poison your chances :)

  6. 7
    RonF says:

    Conversation at home last night between me and my wife, her voice first:

    “You know, I’ve been thinking of starting a blog.”

    “Oh yeah? What about?”

    “Garage sailing”

    She goes to garage sales every weekend as soon as they start until the end, which around here is from late April/early May until late September. She’s picked up some very useful stuff. Also some useless junk, but what the heck. For example, I’ve got a 6 HP snowblower that she bought for $15. I put another $30 into it rebuilding the carburetor and it runs fine. A new one would be $600.

    “What would you talk about?”

    “Where to go, how to schedule them, what people have found, etc.”

    “Sounds good.”

    “Yes, [our daughter] ridiculed the idea. I guess she thinks that I don’t know enough about computers.”

    “It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. There’s lots of different sites that will host them and provide software. But you have to update them every day if you want people to read and comment, or at least every other day. And you have to watch the comments because people will start up flame wars or leave obscene comments.”

    At which point my wife delivered the punchline of the evening:

    “How do you know? Do you read blogs?”

  7. 8
    Charles S says:

    So it is pretty obvious that we should have been protesting in the streets against the Republican budget cuts, but it is even more obvious that we should be protesting in the streets against the looming government shut-down, and certainly we should be planning to protest in the streets once the government is shut-down [for the appropriate value of ‘we’].

    Does anyone know of any groups that are planning such protests for this weekend?

  8. 9
    RonF says:

    Charles S.:

    Go for it. Nothing will better inspire the people who pay the taxes to keep the government running to stand their ground than to see that while they were working to earn the money from which those taxes are taken a bunch of protesters were out in the street waving signs, yelling inane slogans and spreading trash all over.

  9. 10
    RonF says:

    There’s an interesting First Amendment debate going on. Terry Jones, a preacher in Florida, burned a Koran in public. News of this was widely publicized. Numerous people in Muslim-majority nations reacted predictably. In Afghanistan this culminated on an attack on a U.N. installation wherein about a dozen innoncent people were killed. Numerous people in the U.S. condemned Rev. Jones. Gen. Petraeus called it hateful, intolerant and disrespectful. Senator Lindsey Graham on CBS’s Face The Nation wished that stronger action could be taken:

    I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war. During World War II you had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy. Any time we can push back here in American against actions like this that put our troops at risk, we ought to do it.

    George Stephanopoulos of Good Morning America is quoted as saying that:

    We also saw Democrats and Republicans alike assume that Pastor Jones had a Constitutional right to burn those Korans. But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on “GMA” that he’s not prepared to conclude that — in the internet age — the First Amendment condones Koran burning.

    I’m curious as to what you all think of this.

    Does the First Amendment protect Rev. Jones’ right to burn a Koran?

    During WW II anti-war and defeatist speech was considered as inspiring the enemy. Propaganda that promoted ridicule and disrespect for the enemy was not only encouraged, it was officially produced. Does Sen. Graham’s analogy to how free speech has been restricted in wartime apply better to Rev. Jones or to Michael Moore?

    Can anyone find a transcript of what Justice Breyer actually said on GMA? If what is reported is correct, what do you think of that?

    What level of responsibility for the deaths of the U.N. workers in Afghanistan does Rev. Jones carry?

  10. 11
    Ampersand says:

    Question someone emailed me:

    Hi Barry, I am a 62 year old woman and I want to put a bumper sticker on my car for the first time ever. I will get them made and out to women of all ages. They (we) are all pissed off. How do I say My Uterus is Incorporated in Spanish? Help me out here, even if we have to make it up? It’s a good point.

    Anyone know the answer?

  11. 12
    RonF says:

    According to Google it’s:

    Mi útero se incorpora!

    Babelfish via Yahoo says:

    ¡Se incorpora mi útero!

    and FreeTranslation says:

    ¡Se incorpora mi útero!

    Two out of three, I figure. My guess is that 95 out of a hundred Spanish speakers who see such a bumper sticker will think the Spanish equivalent of “WTF?” And the other 5 will figure she’s a surrogate mother.

  12. 13
    Elusis says:

    But does “incorpora” mean “incorporated” as in “made into a corporate entity,” or as in “absorbed into a whole”? The difference would seem to make all the difference.

  13. 15
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Hey fellow parents, a little help here!

    My daughter wants a bikini.

    Since she’s not even 10 yet I want to get her one which looks like a kids bikini, not a mini-adult bikini. In other words it is OK for it to show her stomach, but it shouldn’t be fashioned in a manner as to emphasize her (nonexistent) breastline. And it has to stay on when she dives, wrestles, surfs, etc.

    Basically what I want in a top is a short tankini with elastic on the bottom, not a string triangle (yuck), halter top, or bikinis with cleavage-focusing features like keyholes (and if you’re asking who the hell would put a cleavage keyhole on a size 10 bikini, I am wondering the same thing.)

    And the bottom should be a normal coverage bottom, not a string triangle or low-rider.

    Do these exist? Anywhere? So far the “sexy bikini” cutoff seems to be age 6. i’m remembering why I refused to get her one last year.

    Help!

  14. 16
    chingona says:

    @ Ron … Those translations are all the same. In Spanish, you can put the subject anywhere in the sentence. Putting uterus at the end gives it a little more oomph, but there’s no substantive difference.

    The dictionary I consulted gives both senses of incorporar – either to incorporate or to join a larger entity.

    I think it does not make a lot of sense in Spanish, but mostly because even to make sense in English, you need the political context.

  15. 17
    chingona says:

    About a girls’ tankini … I found these on Amazon that seem reasonable …

    http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Piece-Floral-Tankini-Swimwear/dp/B004G8P1N8/ref=sr_1_42?s=apparel&qlEnable=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1302639778&sr=1-42

    http://www.amazon.com/Speedo-Patchwork-Animal-Tankini-Swimsuit/dp/B00466IQNW/ref=sr_1_40?s=apparel&qlEnable=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1302639778&sr=1-40

    http://www.amazon.com/Speedo-Girls-Atomic-Rashguard-Swimsuit/dp/B00466IQBY/ref=sr_1_36?s=apparel&qlEnable=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1302639778&sr=1-36

    But yikes, even searching under “tankini” got lots of stuff that was a lot skimpier. When I was a kid, I was only allowed to wear Speedo one-pieces. Of course, I also wasn’t allowed to wear skirts! My dad might have gone a little bit overboard.

    Good luck. I’m not looking forward to dealing with this kind of stuff.

  16. 18
    nobody.really says:

    Ok team, who feels like pissing on Obama now?

    THE UMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

    …The endpoint [of budget negotiations] is a deal with Republicans to reduce spending and raise revenue, but adopting a bipartisan plan as his own would reframe a previously centrist idea as a democratic plan, meaning that any outcome would be a compromise between something like Bowles-Simpson [bipartisan commission plan] and Paul Ryan’s dystopian vision of social Darwinism. He wanted [to] be the umpire of the debate, not a participant in it.

    In his budget speech today, Obama attempted to square the circle in two ways. First, he nodded at the Bowles-Simpson approach without endorsing it explicitly or in detail…. And second, he beat Ryan and the Republicans to a bloody pulp….

    He expressed moral outrage in a way I’ve never heard him do before, and in a way I didn’t think he was capable of. After his spokesmen have feebly pawed at Ryan’s plan for lacking “balance,” it was jolting to hear Obama lambaste Ryan with language like this:

    I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves.

    … Obama made the crucial step of attacking Republicans for doing these things while cutting taxes for the rich. It’s impossible to overstate just how commanding a position Obama holds here with regard to public opinion. People overwhelmingly favor higher taxes on the rich. They even more overwhelmingly oppose cutting Medicare. The Republican plan to impose deep Medicare cuts in order to free up room to cut taxes for the rich is ridiculously, off-the-charts unpopular. If Republicans want to take this position, Obama [will] make them pay dearly.

  17. 19
    Robert says:

    Let’s compromise.

    Kill the poor, eat the rich, tax every other son of a bitch.

  18. 20
    nobody.really says:

    Perhaps. To weave in another thread, the rich tend to be thinner than the poor. Consequently Robert’s proposal might be healthier than the alternative.