The Alas Debate Annex

Post what you want, when you want, with whom you want. Self-linking makes me clap my heels and dance the night away.

This camera commercial is just neat as a piece of animation, although I found the story odd — I found myself wondering if the dude had gotten divorced or something, just because his wife stopped showing up at all. They also made a sequel with billboard-sized photos.

More links:

1. Christopher Hitchens writes beautifully about his cancer.
2. Interviews with Christian boys about how girls should dress to be “modest”:
   

   Immodesty, then, is not simply about being vigilant about your clothing (don’t wear a purse that falls diagonally across your body, don’t show your arms or your thighs), it’s a constant vigilance about how you display your body (don’t stretch, bend, or bounce). “Clothing plays a part in modesty, but it is only a part,” an 18 year old male explains, “Any item of clothing can be immodest” (his emphasis).

3. The history of zippers is surprisingly entertaining reading. (Via.)
4. A graduate student in Medieval Studies at Yale discusses the actual history behind the word Cordova. What a shock: It doesn’t mean anything offensive at all. Who knew that people who uncritically parrot stuff they heard on Fox News could be mistaken?
5. THE GREATEST ACTION-ADVENTURE TV SHOW INTROS OF ALL TIME!
6. Look at GOP leader Boehner squirm when directly asked about how the GOP’s tax cuts will grow the deficit. A stunning entry in the annals of weaseldom.
7. Glenn Greenwald takes apart Ross Douthat’s defense of marriage inequality.
8. Dispatch from Arizona: Life Without Sanctuary
9. The average term of Supreme Court Justices has gotten much longer, not mainly because people are living longer, but because the job has gotten so much better that almost no one quits anymore.
10. We could save over $500 million a year by no longer printing dollar bills, and using dollar coins instead. But our political process is so broken that it’s hard to imagine Congress being willing to pick up a free $500 million dollars that’s just lying on the sidewalk.
11. Undocumented immigrants aren’t “jumping the line,” because there is no line to jump.
12. “Illegals” are Helping to Save Social Security — for Other Americans :: racismreview.com
13. When unemployment rises, xenophobia and nativism rises, too.
14. Ear Pull Championship (with photos!)
15. Today’s Degrassi episode will feature transgender character
16. “Crisis Pregnancy Center” employee suggests that women go through with childbirth in hopes that it’ll reform her abusive boyfriend.
17. This cartoon about a newspaper delivery boy made me laugh.
18. “Sometimes I think it’s too late for my daughter to develop a healthy sense of her own sexuality, when at 10 she’s already getting clear messages about her function as a object for the male gaze.”
19. XKCD on Period Speech
20. Another reason Senate Democrats are (and always will be?) losers.
21. The NAACP Was Right, Cont.
22. Obama Launches New Program to Help Corporations “Take Advantage of Low Labor Costs” Abroad
23. States are broke not because of poor planning, but because of a historically bad recession.
24. Indian Women Increasingly Taking Self Defense Classes to Fight Back (Literally) Against Eve Teasing
25. Unemployment marches on, and if watching this video isn’t terrifying to you then I think there’s something wrong with you (via):