conuly

Mixed-use neighborhoods may reduce some crimes

An article ambitiously titled "Evolution in Action" about how some skinks give live birth

What to do if you lose a body part. Not likely to come up, but better to read it now - are you really gonna go google if your fingers get chopped off?

An article on the bedbug conference

Hilariously, it notes that the bedbug control folks all religiously checked their rooms first thing. It'd be the worst kind of irony to come home from this event with a few little hitchhikers!

Interesting quote here: “People still have in their heads that bedbugs means someone’s dirty,” Mr. Linde said, “but I handle multimillion-dollar homes in Westchester and Connecticut, and believe me, no one’s dirty.”

"People" think bedbugs mean you're *dirty*, but *he* doesn't bring up dirt, he brings up wealth. Because people do think the two go together (or don't, rather).

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In Mezuzas, a Custom Inherited by Gentiles

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Thousands of Trees Killed by New York Tornadoes

This is right on the heels of a huge tree-killing storm only half a year ago. Two years before that we had the storm that took out half the (remaining) trees on our block and a spire off the church up the hill. They call these "freak storms" but how freakish can they be, really?

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A Perk of Our Evolution: Pleasure in Pain of Chilies

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Family Fight, Border Patrol Raid, Baby Deported

What's all this crap I keep hearing about "anchor babies"? For crying out loud, the girl's mother's family has been in the US four generations, but she still got swept away.

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Mormon-Owned Paper Stands With Immigrants

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And I'm not even reading that many! But everybody links to some articles, and then I read Pat's Papers (which is awesome), and then the articles and stories there have links on the side, and all of a sudden I have ten pages of links up.

*sighs*

Well, the non-not-a-mosque articles up first.

First, a video clip that's not entirely about space toilets, except that it pretty much is. I gotta say, this is something I never contemplated while eating dehydrated astronaut ice cream!

One on a boy's school that's going to "cater to boy's learning styles". Good idea in theory, but it again makes the foolish assumption that all boys have the same learning style, and that's universally different from girls (who ALSO all have the same learning style), and that the "sit down and shut up" method of education is great for girls and ONLY detrimental to boys.

The comments are hilarious. Half of them are "Oh, these spoiled boys, they're never going to get a job and they're going to be bullies and they'll be on welfare just wait and see" and the other half are "Oh, see, this is all because of feminism and feminists are why we don't have gym class because girls are weak and pathetic and feminists want to hurt everybody and the idea that girls and boys might have ANYthing in common is a lie". Then there's this one person who works for the people who made this school and who wants to comment to EVERYBODY telling them how wonderful it is. There's a small handful of comments going "I'm a woman/I have a daughter, and this would've suited me/her" or "I'm a man/have a son and this would be TERRIBLE" or even "Well, of course, there are many many MANY learning styles and they don't match up evenly the way you think, even if there is some correlation...." but they're being voted down by damn near everybody, which is a shame.

More on bedbugs

An article on kids who don't want to give up their pediatrician even when, well, they're not kids anymore.

The youngest kids in the class are more likely to get (mis?)diagnosed ADHD

The newest set of college kids was born in 1992, and look - the reference list is updated!

Here's some nifty school supplies. Gotta say, the dry-erase crayons work really well.

And finally, a post about a guy who got a call in the middle of the night from a prostitute in his office.

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Dear Rest-of-America: Take This Map, It's Why You're Wrong About the "Ground Zero Mosque"

The Ground Zero Coat

Where's the Ground Zero Terror Mosque? 39 Experts Explain!

I especially love “on the ash-strewn site of 3,000 dead Americans”. Guys? It's been nine years. We've, uh, we've kinda swept it up already. Although if you'd like to volunteer for clean-up efforts, even though the ash is gone I'm sure I can find you some gum to scrape off the sidewalk for us. You know - so the terrorists don't win and all.

The Wikipedia article on Mohammed Salman Hamdani

GOP calls Obama insensitive over stand on mosque

Nothing new there, but I love how it's written up. For some people, writing an article is an excuse to break out the melodrama. "Recalling the emotion of that deadly day" indeed! It was 9/11. You don't need to spell it out for us. We were (most of us) there. Or not, but you know what I mean.

Senate races in Louisiana and Nevada are suddenly about a construction project in distant Manhattan

The absurd controversy over the proposed Islamic center in New York shows that many Americans need to meet some Muslims.

*Lack of bedbug poo and eggs, that sort of thing

I've come to the conclusion that most of the bedbugs in my room (not talking about the rest of the house) are actually on or near my bed or bedding. The few other ones I've seen have been making a bedbugline from the area of my bed to me.

They were under the hemming on my mattress - you know, the part that sticks out? Join me in saying EWEWEWEWEWWWWWWW!

So yesterday I took some 409 and sprayed the little critters. They don't move that fast, and 409 really does kill them on contact, though this is not a good long-term plan. It was the most fun I've had all week! Very satisfying, spraying them and watching them go into their death throes. I mean, now my mattress has corpses all over it (haven't vacuumed yet, doing that tonight) and it smells faintly of 409, which is sure to be toxic, but still.

With that said, lookylookylookyhere! I can get a bedbug stuffed animal! COOOOOOOOOL! It's much too pink, they seem browner to me, but whatever. I so want one to commemorate the experience.