Wednesday Walk Around the Web – 09/07/2016

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Welcome to the Wednesday Walk Around the Web, where we weave & wind through weblinks weekly. Hopefully you will find the links on offer amusing, interesting, or, occasionally, profound. Views expressed in the Wednesday Walk do not necessarily reflect those of anyone but the writer. Do you have a link you want to see featured in next week’s Walk? Comment on the Walk post at the Place to Be Nation Facebook page, or find Glenn on the social media platform of your choice!

  • In controlling disease-carrying rats, as in so many other things, cats will save us. It’s basically why they were deomsticated in the first place, after all.
  • Thank you, internet, for the great historical linguistics poetry. Sorry, thorn.
  • Honestly, the best way to get to the top of Everest is probably the magic of Photoshop. Unless I can strap a camera to a drone and send it up, maybe.
  • Now, I can’t claim a world of expertise in the management of political campaigns just from the year and a half I spent on the lower levels of some of them back in my dark past, but I know enough to know that ONE field office in the entire state of Florida is obscenely negligent. It’s just as well that the obscenely negligent campaign is the one being run by a corrupt know-nothing white-supremacist; still. But oh, one might say, there are still going to be local campaigns run by local candidates crawling around every voter list in the US, plus the national party separate from the presidential campaign — the thing is, local campaigns and party organizations are supposed to be bolstered by the national campaign, they typically don’t have to pick up the slack for its lethargy. (I mean, of course they’re not in point-and-laugh territory yet; some people, somehow, are going to think that voting for them is a thing any human should ever do. Vote every time they’ll let you, and then point and laugh when possible.)
  • Movies end with the disclaimer that they’re fiction because of Ra-Ra-Rasputin, of course.
  • International Vulture Awareness Day was the other day, so let’s take a moment to consider their real value.
  • Clouds are a glimpse into the mighty power of fluid dynamics, complicated equations made real and actual and gorgeous, painted across the sky.”
  • How much thought do you put into cutting cake equitably? Or do you just grab a fork and give everyone else the stink-eye?
  • Finally, someone made The Force Awakens truly great.
  • From the mouths of babes: a two-year-old provides the solution to the trolley problem.
  • Native American protestors have been demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project that started construction without easements or permits and which violates native land and water rights. Meanwhile, pepper spray and attack dogs are released on protestors.
  • This Week in Labor: paid sick days, surprise surprise, result in fewer people getting sick.
  • This Week in Procedural Text: train a neural network with the first four Harry Potter books, and you get whole new Potter stories without the inconvenience of actually involving JKR. “Ron, Harry noticed, was nearly right.”
  • It’s back-to-school season, and so some of the children will be returning to sportsballs as well. It’s important to remember, as a parent/spectator, to maintain a certain level of decorum and perspective whilst your kiddos are sportsballing.
  • If you like thinking about dumb things people did in History Times to make yourself feel beter, there’s always more info to be had about lead, the miracle metal that had to be put in everything. If you like despairing at the state of the world, there’re always the people dealing with very real lead contamination today. Choose your own adventure!