State of the Sarah

Brain being eaten by a combination of Ticket To Ride Online, Doctor Who, Farscape, and True Blood (I've been in a marathoning sort of mood recently). Life's good, I'm gardening for the first time in years, we've got the truck fixed up early, there should be a firebowl party later this month. I'm in a very good, productive mood, if not a particularly social one. Tonight I'm planning on following up on some exploring I've been doing about carryout food anywhere near my office. Since I switched shifts, options are incredibly limited, and there's only so much chinese food, Mr. Hero, and pizza I can eat before I go nuts. However, I think I can just barely make it to Grovewood Tavern for a carryout order. The one time I had their food it was amazing, and I think the mini brie salad and the blackened scallops might be calling my name.

Work is good, and still remarkably chill, although I'm sure the project work will be coming sooner or later. Home is a continual project, but a good one. Not too much going on beyond that, and I'm pretty happy with that at the moment.

Linkety-Linkety

I've got a lot of stuff stored up, but I'm not very focused today, so we'll see how much I actually get sorted to post.

BP Oil Spill: Daily Dead Wildlife Tally
BP disaster update: 40,000 barrels a day, kill the birds, and a Rolling Stone bombshell
Natural oil seeps: Not proof oil spill worries are overblown
Sea turtle clean-up
Efforts to Limit the Flow of Spill News

New policy for changing gender on US passport

Gallery: Digitizing the past and present at the Library of Congress

Kai and I spoke on the phone about her experiences on the Biggest Loser. From seeing her fellow contestants forced to workout with injuries against doctor’s orders, to the extreme dehydration prior to weigh-ins, to the resultant eating disorder that Kai still is working to heal, the story she told was nothing like the fantasy that the Biggest Loser seeks to promote.

US Border Patrol union rep: It's okay to shoot Mexican kids who throw stones

"Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals have poorer health than heterosexuals in
Massachusetts and bisexuals fare the worst, according to a federal
health survey offering one of the few windows into health differences
among the people who make up sexual orientation minorities."

From trendy central Stockholm to this village in the rugged forest south of the Arctic Circle, 85 percent of Swedish fathers take parental leave.

Steven Pinker: "Tech rots your brain" hysteria is stupid

Women scientists on the debate over women in science

Reprinted antique medical illustrations and film posters

World's oldest leather shoe

List of women-friendly mosques in England

Massey miner fired after he spoke to the press about safety

Iceland passes gay marriage law in unanimous vote

Creative Uses of Technology to Give Rural Women Access to Reproductive Health in Iowa -- we have a similar service in use at the Clinic in some departments; the employee walk-in clinic uses it, and it works well in my experience.

Just When You Thought American Apparel Couldn't Fail Any Harder...

More good stuff from Feministing

An article published in Advances in Nursing Science explores the lack of LGBT issues presented in nursing and allied health publications. Written by Michele Eliason, Suzanne Dibble, and Jeanne DeJoseph, the article found that only 0.16 percent of articles focused on LGBT health (8 of nearly 5,000 articles of nursing and allied health publications). The authors describe the impact of this silence in the article.

Healthcare Equality Index 2010 Finds Majority of U.S. Healthcare Facilities Not Fully Inclusive of LGBT People

Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench

Arizona's Next Immigration Target: Children of Illegals

Medical Marijuana Madness in Montana

Thoughts on VA and active duty care

Local (Cleveland) pet-related news

Tremont artist Jeffry Chiplis shot after ArtWalk

Fuel from sewage can be profitable: study

Signal Boost: call for help

Vatican to clamp down on liberal secular opinion -- Wow, that's priceless.

Several Good linkety posts from ajollypyruvate


OK, I'm more than halfway done, so I'm taking a break here. More later, or tomorrow.

Linkety-Linkety -- addenda

Hair pulling is a neuroimmunological condition (ferkan's comment is a good reflection of some of the overstatements and jumps here, though)

Wrestling Buddies and unicorns: a personal reflection on gender

Attack of the '80s Cartoons

HUD Implements First Policy Change to Help Prevent LGBT Housing Discrimination

Can She Build It? Um...Yes, She Can!

Do Pets Belong on a College Campus? -- I see both sides on this one; I was on-campus during breaks and summers to hear the horror stories about abandoned pets, but I also desperately needed animal contact in college and I suspect my first year depression was substantially worse as a result of being without pets for the first time in my life. I think it can be handled well, and this article gives me some hope that some schools are working to sort that out.

Time Lord Saves Harris Tweed

Some of the world's biggest cats are “obsessed” with Calvin Klein cologne.

So How Long DO You Have To Wait For Citizenship?

Fascinating, fascinating velvet worms

Are Liberal Judges Really 'Judicial Activists'?

Sonoluminescence: When sound makes light


OK, I think that's it for today. Caught up on reading (kinda-mostly), still need to catch up on replies.