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“Politics have no place in health care”: Excuse me, are you *new*?!?

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by Doctor Science

I didn’t post about The Great Komen Foundation vs. Planned Parenthood Clash of the Titans last week, mostly because D & I both had viral gastroenteritis. It was vile, but at least the kids didn’t get it.

Clash

A stained-glass window of Clash of the Titans, made for Ray Harryhausen’s house. I completely agree with Medusa.

Ta-Nehisi Coates noted that Planned Parenthood has a very deep bench:

I don’t think that Handel, or her allies, quite understood the nature of their adversaries. I mentioned this in comments the other day but it’s interesting to look at how Planned Parenthood has weathered under targeting from the Right, as compared with other groups. This is not like ACORN. Whatever their significant work in poor communities and black and Latino communities, Planned Parenthood has touched women across race and across class, and thus indirectly, touched men across race and class too.

I am one of those women.

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My mid-week shocker

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by liberal japonicus This article, about the reinvention of malls, was moving past my eyes, when this paragraph appeared: A new enclosed mall has not opened in the United States since 2006, according to Professor Dunham-Jones, and many ambitious projects, like New Jersey’s Xanadu just west of Manhattan, have lain half-finished for years. (emphasis mine) … Read more

Remix at the Super Bowl

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by Doctor Science

When I heard the halftime show at the Super Bowl would be Madonna, I knew it was going to be something pretty flamboyant in the way of over-the-top entertainment. But I didn’t imagine that it was going to be a fannish remix.

To refresh your memory, or to let you see it for the first time:

(behind the cut: videos, also an image of classical artistic nudity)

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Your they write letters Friday open thread

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This letter (picked up from Yahoo news), from a former slave answering his master's request that he return is the topic of today's open thread.  Apart from the wonderful window it opens up on history (and the exquisitely modulated sarcasm, excerpting it here would not do the letter justice), it provides a jumping off point for whatever … Read more

Tab Dump: January Thaw

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by Doctor Science Not that we had much of a January freeze, mind you. Sir Thomas More, by Hans Holbein. Because he has such great links. Hardiness Zone Changes — good tool to show how the USDA has re-calibrated the hardiness zones used by farmers and gardeners. My town has moved from 6b to 7a … Read more

There is no barrel bottom to scrape Friday open thread

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by liberal japonicus

I'm not trying to get a rise out of anyone, but in the thread that turned into a copyright discussion, one person (and I'm not going to go back and check who it is, cause it's not really important) posited a situation where iirc a plumber breaks into your house and fixes your pipes. What should pop up but this article, with a story that about some horologists breaking into a place and fixing a clock. The story awaits below the fold

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Friends Don’t Let Friends

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by Doctor Science … publish in Elsevier journals. Two years ago, Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber decided that he would no longer referee for, or publish in, journals published by Elsevier. Now Fields Medal-winning mathematician Tim Gowers has reached the end of his patience. He took the no-Elsevier pledge, and there is now a website … Read more

Baltasar Garzón and the tension between national and international laws

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by liberal japonicus This Guardian piece and the accompanying video is well worth your attention. Garzón was the judge who issued an international arrest warrant for Augusto Pinochet for his role in torturing and executing Spanish citizenship, followed by obtaining pursuing two Argentinian generals for the crime of genocide during the Argentinian dictatorship. No slap … Read more