In the Library with the Lead Pipe

Claiming they had definitively identified the source of the ongoing surge in foodborne illness, Centers for Disease Control officials issued a statement Thursday linking the nation’s cyclosporiasis outbreak to an ancient evil corrupting the Seven Sacred Diarrhea Crystals. “After extensive laboratory testing and data analysis, our epidemiologists have determined that the current outbreak of cyclospora infections was caused by the dark sorcerer Valnos escaping from the Prism of Binding and subsequently plunging the sacred crystals that govern the flow of diarrhea through our lands into chaos and disharmony,” said acting CDC head Jay Bhattacharya, adding that residents in the states of Michigan and New York should avoid consuming bagged salads until Valnos’ corruption has been purged from the Sacred Diarrhea Crystals with the Blade of Destined Digestion.

The Top-Ten Most Popular Barbara Stanwyck Films on Letterboxd

PBS and NPR were never beholden to the US government.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created so that the US government could fund public media without public media being influenced by the government. It was a private non-profit funded by the government, not a part of the government itself. This is by design. This was a good thing. It meant that even small local TV and radio stations, could afford to create media for the public good, without government influence.

This meant TV and radio stations for poor communities. For non-english speaking communities. For rural communities. For minorities. It meant that free and accessible media could be created for everyone, even if the government didn't like it.

That's why conservatives defunded it.

Because if they couldn't control it, and if it helped the people they hated, then they would have to destroy it. Do you really think that a fascist government would defund their own propaganda machine?

Not only is the idea that PBS before being defunded was propaganda wrong, but ignores the fact that defunding it is going to have long-term negative effects on vulnerable communities.

The parasite is also resistant to chlorine, the primary disinfectant used in most municipal water and wastewater treatment systems.

Beatty says it’s likely that thousands more people around the country have been infected.

“This shows us how easily an organism can be distributed to one location within the United States to multiple locations pretty quickly through the networks that we have set up for food distribution,” he says. “This could end up being reported in all 50 states.”

The Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak Is About to Get Much Bigger

And then they could've been eating me!

You have to love the art of words for its own sake. Love the sound of words--how you can make music of a million different rhythms and moods, how the words and sentences you choose can make a million different atmospheres. Love what you can do with words--paint an image, share an emotion, put a person into a scene that only exists in the world of imagination. Love the different ways you can use words--different points of view and tenses, different formats and styles that can each provide a different experience of the story for the reader. You have to love words as your artistic tool and delight in learning new ways to wield them and new effects that you can create with them.

I don't think the government should censor anything, but I think we as people have every right to harass and ostracize people who behave poorly (being bigoted, etc). People shouldn't be arrested for saying words, but they should be terrified that their town will hate them, and that they could possibly never have a social life again.

What a lot of people fail to understand is that being anti-censorship doesn't mean anyone should be able to say whatever they want with no consequences, it means that everyone can say whatever they want, with the addition that everyone else can also respond however they like.

I always hear conservatives go, "all these liberals are trying to censor me." No. Those are the consequences of your actions, under free speech. You have free speech to be a douchebag, and I have the freedom of speech to call you a bigoted piece of shit. Simple as that.