Shorties Box

Congrats to Jon Keeyes and Nightmare Box on its multiple nominations in the Winter 2015 Macabre Faire Film Festival.

Serial: High school students may be more, er, connected than they thought. And not in a good way.

The ugly truth: The NYPD work stoppage is showing how little what they do impacts public safety.

Economic Noble Truths: Who knew that Buddhism and economics had anything in common?

Fly Like an Eagle: To Lake Mead.

I’ve only been saying this since 1991: Colleges have no business whatsoever prosecuting crimes.

Pattern of Misconduct: Ferguson isn’t the first time that prosecutor presented a misleading case against a cop.

Republicans and Social Security: interesting.

And Finally: The Big Fat Book of Offensive Religious Cartoons.

See everybody tomorrow!

The Woman in Shorties

I Tell You What: These days, writing anything cogent about torture is, well, you know.

Important Medical Research: Somebody found out why the doctor’s waiting room has mostly out-of-date magazines.

Does it seem like toys are more gender specific these days?: Well, you’re right.

Pope Francis has had a busy week: Brokering international deals, condemning slavery, and he’s still got to work on Christmas.

Just for the record: I am already freaking sick and tired of speculation about the 2016 Presidential Elections. The fact that these guys (and a couple of ladies) are already jockeying for position is disgusting and evidence that the system is terribly broken. Seriously, my calendar still says 2014; Iowa is still over a year away. I still think my simplification plan could work, particularly paired with my campaign finance reform plan…. Here’s some nice candidate trivia for you.

Above the Law: Uber finally condescended to obey a court order and stop working in Portland. Portland being Portland, they’re trying to find some way to work with Uber. In the meantime, some insight into what happened in Nevada, and their business structure. Yeah, maybe they should play by the rules. The big news is an alleged sexual assault by an Uber driver on an Uber rider in Boston. I am not going to link it as an “I told you so” because I think that the whole model has bigger problems than finding Bad Apples.

Wealth, Jobs, and the Economy: Ok, really more like inequity, bad trade deals, bad jobs deals, controlling the media you watch, and being watched.

And Finally: Boobs and Man Soap.

Big Bad Shorties

It’s the Food: It turns out that people do pay attention to nutrition labels. That’s a good thing, because soon and very soon obesity will overtake tobacco as the #1 killer of Americans. Have some truth in comic form.

Zombies!!: Well sure, they aren’t allowed to try and collect it, but they can still claim you owe it!

Act Two is Coming to Ferguson: The grand jury will speak soon. And it looks like the police are prepared for anything that happens… by which I mean that they are heavily armed in a manner that is itself inflammatory.

On Privacy, not Piracy: Americans are aware of how little privacy they may have.

A few last election items: Yeah, voters are disappointed in Democrats. Yeah Republicans simply “lost less.” And yeah, anybody who wants to win in 2016 better pay attention to how things are going for normal Americans.

And Finally: It would appear that I am the one person in America that does not give a single **** about Kim Kardashian’s ass.

The Shorties Man

Federal Judge uses Common Sense: It is super effective.

Net Neutrality: It’s not dead yet.

Our waning privacy: The FBI is trying to scare Congress. The NSA might find themselves near the end of their leash (a girl can dream).

Strangest thing you’re likely to read today: I promise.

Ok, maybe it’s not a magic anti-aging pill after all: Resveratrol.

Women With Ballots: scary! Be sure to vote, ok?

The Pope: Look, he either speaks the words of God or he doesn’t.

Alcohol: Why doesn’t a bottle of liquor have calorie info on it?

Resume: Um, yeah.

I apologize: I mentioned this story last week, and I am sorry to have gotten pulled in to the hype.

Modern: World War I.

The Town that Dreaded Shorties

Dinosaur Mystery: This huge-armed dinosaur is stranger than imagined.

Underwater Mystery: Amazing shipwreck pictures.

Women’s Issues: OTC birth control pills?

Obama: Apparently somebody else realized that the guy is a tweak to the right of Nixon. Oh yeah, and how dare he actually work with others around the world rather than just telling them all how shit is going down because we’re America and we know best.

A few random food and diet items: milk; resistant starch; sweetened soda isn’t just bad for you, it’s bad for your chromosomes.

Taking care of business: some of the oldest operating businesses in the world; and the history of money.

Halloween is coming: and that means sexy costumes are coming for no good reason.

Mormons: They would like us to know that it’s not really magic underwear.

Some random economy items: rent is going up faster than wages; wealth is growing faster than income, too; and of course that assumes that workers are being paid at all.

I hope nobody is surprised: banks behaving badly.

And check out some new music: Mixtress B.

Shorties Untold

Appetizers: Let’s start with the NSA poppers, and perhaps a beer flight to wash it down?

Soup or salad: The soup du jour is puree of police violence and race issues with a hint of civil forfeiture, topped with prison visit data. Perhaps the lady would prefer our Cosmo-inspired salad with cranberry vinaigrette?

The main course: Make sure it has enough protein! It’s good for you.

A few quick words about your server: Don’t forget that he or she works for a living.

Can I interest you in dessert?: My local news is excited about a study that says we are relatively safe city compared to, say, any major city in Oklahoma. Among the data collected was crime (both violent and property), cops, and traffic fatalities per capita — seems legit. Also included was the number of sex offenders per capita. A quick look at their data table without breaking out the stats tools would tend to make me think that the number of sex offenders has little to do with much of any other data they collected. It’s as if they put it in because they thought it would be important, or thought it made their data look more complete. What makes several California cities, Scottsdale, Augusta, Mesquite, and Chicago more safe than Tulsa despite having at least ten times the number of sex offenders per capita? Could it be that the risk sex offenders will re-offend is overrated?

Oh, need a doggie bag?: Here you go, tips for dealing with strange dogs.

Shorties Fright

The Monk who Saved Lives: Ittetsu Nemoto.

The Priest who Preached Happiness: Let’s hear it once more for Pope Francis.

Israel and Palestine: Just a few assorted and random links.

You know you want it: Here’s the NSA, privacy, FBI, CIAWar on Terror, and related links.

Broken:  immigration and immigration reform problems.

Wow: Larry Kudlow seems to have found his lost mind.

All about the Jobs: We did have good jobs numbers this week. Let’s put it in perspective.

Research supports my observation:  Indeed: “[I]t sure does seem like the vast majority of the people who say diets don’t work have somewhere in their story a sentence like ‘I went on my first diet when I was 13.’ Or 11. Or 16.”

Fiddling while America Burns: Congress is too busy making baseless lawsuits and running out of town, so they can’t be bothered to fund things like fighting forest fires.

Want to know the interesting thing about this article?: This article about events that empower girls by reinforcing gender stereotypes was written by a man.

And finally: Keep it clean, people.

Only Shorties Left Alive

Ok, I know why some of you are here: to get your sweet sweet dose of NSA links.

Turns out not: There’s no shortage of STEM workers. There may, however, be a shortage of STEM workers who want to work for crappy wages.

Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me: Which of these inventions is likely to be fake? Two teenage girls invent new bomb detector that could revolutionize getting around their home town, teenage boy makes browser plugin that allows you to see who a politician’s major contributors are with a simple mouse-over, or Egyptian military invents a gadget that can detect AIDS and Hepatitis C without taking blood samples? Regrettably, I cannot promise that Carl Kassel will record your voicemail message.

Sick of Politics and November is So Far Away: Pelosi thinks immigration reform is now a longshot (because hey, we can’t have a Democratic Kenyan President signing that into law or something). Republicans don’t like it when President Obama does things that President Bush and President Reagan did frequently. Maybe Senator McCain shouldn’t talk about ISIS anymore. And the Koch agenda.

A Couple Items on Abortion: Southern Beale points out that abortion restrictions don’t keep women from getting abortions, just from getting safe ones. And someone I’ve not had the chance to link to in a long time, MahaBarbara on “What If Banks, Not Abortion Clinics, Needed Buffer Zones?”

Have you ever wondered what these signs mean?: In short, the higher the number, the more dangerous it could be.

I’ve said it before: In areas where schools push the high school start time back, student traffic accidents dropped 70%. Oh yeah, and their grades improved.

Have you read this one yet?: It’s been making the rounds, just want to make sure everybody’s seen it.

And finally: A gun safety ad that doesn’t involve a made up tragedy.

Let the Right Shorties In

Source.

Happy Friday the Thirteenth, and Happy Honey Moon.

NSA: Aw, you know I can’t possibly go more than a few days without coming up with some NSA, spying on Americans, War on Terror,or Privacy right? Heck, they may actually have to do things the legal way.

We Don’t Need No Education: Maybe. Unless of course we do.

It’s good to be the king: Or even just the CEO. Not so good to be a serf, but that’s “same as it ever was.”

Election Follies: So much to ridicule, so little time. At least the Chicken Lady lost her bid to be a candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Nevada.

Is anyone in their right mind surprised?: The DEA is playing hard ball with docs who associate themselves with medical marijuana. This is why Nevada doesn’t require a prescription. Remember: pot is still illegal under Federal law, and when all is said and done the Civil War established that Federal law will always trump state law (in that case, the state laws that said people could own other people).

Times haven’t changed: Perception has.

Maya: Zen Pencils.

And Finally: Purple Toes. More.

Shorties Academy

One last thing on Microbiology: We have perfectly good vaccines that prevent deadly diseases. Use them!

Freakin NSA: please, help yourself to the links.

Can you feel the love tonight: A wolf falls in love.

This is apparently a thing: Maybe I should have waited until Caturday, but heck, enjoy some Catios.

TIL: Anderson Cooper is the son of Gloria Vanderbilt — which means he is of Old Money. And that’s not even the most interesting thing about him. He was a model as a boy, and a CIA intern for a couple summers.

Radley is Back: And he reminds us that cops (and others) have no expectation of privacy in a public place.

Politics as Usual: Words of wisdom for Republicans and Democrats.

Study proves fruits and vegetables are good for you: duh.

Let’s end happy: A nice news story with a happy ending and a pretty picture.