London comes up with cute painted bookbenches. Not that anything is likely to save this formerly beautiful city but still it’s nice somebody’s trying.

“People, and especially men, hate being alone with their thoughts so much that they’d rather be in pain. In a study published in Science  Thursday on the ability of people to let their minds “wander” — that is, for them to sit and do nothing but think — researchers found that about a quarter of women and two-thirds of men chose electric shocks over their own company.” This is a great test for psychological test. Try just sitting and staring into space for 15 minutes. If that becomes intolerable, it’s time to start taking care of your mental health. And it isn’t surprising that more men have serious mental health problems. They are socialized not to take care of their health and just soldier on in spite of the pain.

“I assume many of the guys in New Hampshire were influenced by Ayn Rand. Weirdly, while Rand appeared to appreciate building and creating (e.g., The Fountainhead), she didn’t appear to appreciate civilization or notice that creativity and building have no value or purpose outside of civilization.” Maybe it would make sense to read Rand before babbling aimlessly. There wasn’t a greater lover of civilization than Rand.

Have you heard of the rolling coal fetish? It’s totally bizarre.

Fat is not the opposite of athletic.

A judge ridicules the idiot proponents of a ban on gay marriage.

“Putin is an expert at stringing the Europeans along, and it looks like they are content to let him.” Very true.

“I never liked the term progressive. I never liked that people thought they would avoid being demonized if they ran from the word liberal.” I don’t like the word “Liberal” not because I fear that some unidentified forces will ‘demonize” me but because I’m not entirely comfortable with the word “liberty” unless it is specified what it is that we are aiming to free ourselves from. At least, the word ‘progressive’ has a very clear meaning.

“But the Hobby Lobby decision now puts government in the position of deciding what’s a “true” religion, and what are “reasonable” religious beliefs. If Hobby Lobby, for example, refused to hire African-American people because the Bible says they are Satan’s people, or are destined to be slaves (both can be inferred from the text), the Court would not have allowed this. That is, the government’s laws would be applied based on the CONTENT of the religious belief.” And this is reason #965 why the Hobby Lobby decision sucks dick.

Corporate Gay Pride. This is kind of disturbing.

A fascinating long post on how budget airlines try to save money.

Anarchism is based on a joke. Color me unsurprised.

A great analysis of Douthat’s suggestions on how to fight campus rape.

In Spanish. The leading Spanish newspaper decides to offer a platform for the neo-Nazi Limonov to spout his disgusting anti-Ukrainian garbage. Spain, what’s up with you? You are not France, you can’t afford to flirt with fascism once again. Haven’t you had enough?

“ASU Police beat the crap out of a black professor for walking in the street around construction, throwing her against a police car so hard that they damaged the car. Then they charge her with felony assault.”

Empire State Pride. Beautiful!

“A layman writing under the pseudonym of “Steve Goddard” accused the US government of fabricating temperature data. Sadly it quickly went viral. Fortunately in this case some conservatives are criticizing their own when they make outlandish statements, something rarely seen in US political debates — where truth is purely tribal.” This is a great point, about the truth being very tribal in our politics.

“Russia has ended its claim to a right to protect Russians in the Ukraine.  Putin has supported the cease-fire.” Even Putin stopped  claiming that there were any Russians in Ukraine in need of protection back in March. Not a single Russian persecuted or discriminated against in Ukraine has surfaced. (Although persecuted and discriminated Russians surface in Russia every day.) Yet the Putin-loving idiot Ian Welsh persist in the face of complete lack of evidence. But hey, when did facts stop this weirdo from spouting idiotically?

“There is a strange irony, of course, in the fact that the two regions that are the most Tea Party-centric are also the regions that rely the most on government support.” Exactly. read the entire post, folks, it’s very good.

Russians have signed an agreement with Cuba, forgiving 90% of Cuba’s debt. This is only right since the Russians were the ones who initially got poor clueless Cubans into this entire sad mess.

Ukrainian troops are on the offensive and have beaten the bandits out of the city of Slovyansk.

The bandits are getting upset with Putin for not helping them enough. I wonder if they can be persuaded to go back to Russia to whoop Putin’s ass for his betrayal.

The Pride parade in Kiev had to be canceled. Civilization comes slowly and painfully.

In Russia, a new law had been passed guaranteeing a jail sentence of up to 5 years to any blogger who writes that the Crimea should be returned to Ukraine. But that’s nothing compared to the law making it very hard for those who are not athletic to acquire higher education.