The HIT LIST is the Palace Library’s reading room.

Inconvenient facts are often absent in our sound-bite-media world, and the human mind is not very good at noticing what is missing.  To help mitigate that failing, here is a repository of links to facts and opinions relevant to subjects of interest ’round the Palace.

ABORTION:

[Palace posts that reference abortion can be found here.]

• Abortion Safer for Women Than Childbirth, Study Claims. Gordon, S., U.S. News (Jan. 2012) “The risk of death associated with a full-term pregnancy and delivery is 8.8 deaths per 100,000, while the risk of death linked to legal abortion is 0.6 deaths per 100,000 women…That means a woman carrying a baby to term is 14 times more likely to die than a woman who chooses to have a legal abortion…”
• Center for Reproductive Rights.
• Crisis Pregnancy Center (“CPC”). (See also: Six Pregnancy Tests in One Week. [h/t Avicenna].)
• How I Lost Faith in the “Pro-Life” Movement, Libby Anne, Patheos. (Oct. 2012) (See also the follow-up post: A Response to Objections on My Pro-Life Movement Post)
• I’mNotSorry.net
• Imposing Misery: The Impact of Manila’s Ban on Contraception (2007) Linangan ng Kababaihan, Inc. (Likhaan).
• In re A.C.  Angela Carder was forced to undergo a life-threatening Caesarean section she did not want in an unsuccessful attempt to save the life of her fetus.
• Long-term impact of reproductive factors on cancer risk.  La Vecchia, C., et al., Int J Cancer 53(2):215-9 (Jan 1993) “Induced abortions exerted a strong protective effect against endometrial cancer (RR ["Relative Risk"] = .05 for at least 1 abortion; p .01 for the trend [X = 17.49]). They also had a protective effect against colon cancer (RR = 0.4 for at least 2 abortions; p .05) and breast cancer (RR = 0.8; p .05). On the other hand, induced abortions increased the RR of developing cervical cancer (RR = 1.5 for at least 1 abortion; p .01 for the trend [X = 13.61]).”
• NARAL.
• National Network of Abortion Funds.
• Nun at Phoenix Hospital Rebuked for Allowing Abortion. (Associated Press via Foxnews.com, May 2010)
• Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges (guardian, Pilkington, E. Jun. 2011).
• Outlawing abortions does not stop them, study says.  (Oct. 2007)
• Overview of Abortion in the United States. (Guttmacher Institute, Jan. 2011) (pdf)
• The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion:  When the anti-choice choose. (Arthur, J., Sept. 2000).
• Philippines – City of Guilt (1 of 2) (2 of 2). The Unreported World (video) (2006). [h/t Avicenna].
• Photo of Geraldine Santoro, woman dead from self-abortion attempt, pre-Roe v. Wade [WARNING: extremely graphic, extremely disturbing, NSFW]
• Planned Parenthood. Delivering vital reproductive health care, sex education and information to millions of people worldwide for over than 90 years.
• Pregnant Dominican Teen Dies of Complications of Cancer and Refusal of Abortion. Marty, R. and Jacobson, J., RH Reality Check (Aug. 2012)
• RHRealitycheck.org.  Reproductive & Sexual Health and Justice: News, Analysis and Commentary.
• The United States: Where Pregnancy is Probationary and Your Body Is a Crime Scene. Chemaly, S., RHRealityCheck (May 2012) “Hundreds of women around the country* are currently imprisoned under the aegis of “best intentions” laws. What this means is that feticide and fetal murder laws can now be used to charge, imprison and penalize pregnant women at the discretion of legislators and law enforcement officials.”
• The Way it Was: “I was seventeen, and pregnant. What happened next is what could happen again.” Cooney, E. Mother Jones (Sep./Oct. 2004)
• What happens to women denied abortions? This is the first scientific study to find out. Newitz, A., io9.com (Nov. 2012)
• Women die after Nicaragua’s ban on abortions. MSNBC/AP (Nov. 2007)

ABUSE:  [See RAPE, ABUSE & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE below.]

NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY? CLICK HERE.

ATHEISM:  [See GODLESSNESS below.]

BLOGGING & WRITING:

[Palace posts that reference blogging can be found here.]

• Derailing for Dummies.  “By simply derailing the conversation, dismissing their opinion as false and ridiculing their experience you can be sure that they continue to be marginalised and unheard and you can continue to look like the expert you know you really are, deep down inside!”
• “Don’t Feed the Trolls” Is Bad Science. Zvan, S. (Feb. 2012)
• Flat N All That: Matt Taibbi Eviscerates Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded.” Taibbi, M., New York Press (Jan. 2009)  Classic.
• Internet Argument Techniques. Cracked.com
• Killfile for Firefox.
• Men Explain Things to Me. Solnit, R., TomDispatch (Apr. 2008)
• On Being a No-Name Blogger Using Her Real Name, Harding, K. (Apr. 2007)
• SIWOTI Syndrome.

CONSERVATIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER [see also ENEMIES below]:

[Palace posts that reference conservative personality disorder can be found here.]

• The Authoritarians. (PDF)  (Altemeyer, R., 2006;  Tea Party update 2010) “Many scattered impressions about the enemies of freedom and equality become solidified by science and coherently connected here. You think I’m pulling your leg? Click the link.”
• Billionaire self-pity and the Koch brothers. (Greenwald, G., Mar. 2011)
• Cleanliness Cues Activate Conservative Attitudes. (Jacobs, T., Miller-McCune, Apr. 2011)
• A Conservative Catholic Point of View.  (Comte, R. L.)
• Conservatives have larger “Fear Center” in the brain. (Salon.com, 2010)
• Do Bush Followers Have a Political Ideology? (Greenwald, G., 2006)
• E. Coli Conservatism.  Perlstein, R., (2007) “Conservatism has been killing Americans. The recent food safety crisis is only one case study.”
• The GOP is the Food Stamp Party.  @LOLGOP, The National Memo (Nov. 2012) “Republican states not only benefit most from government support, their policies create the need for food stamps in the first place.”
• The Ideological Animal.  (Dixit, Jay 2007) “Our essential political self is more a stew of childhood temperament, education, and fear of death.”
• Liberals Think More Analytically (More ‘Weird’) than Conservatives. Talhelm, T. et al. (Jul. 2012) “liberals think more analytically (an element of WEIRD thought) than moderates and conservatives — even in China…Social politics predicted thought style much better than economic and overall political identity. Studies 4 and 5 showed that briefly training people to think analytically made them form a more liberal opinion on welfare, whereas training them to think holistically made them form a more conservative opinion.”
• The Long Con: Mail-order conservatism.  Perlstein, R., The Baffler, “‘I didn’t like Nixon until Watergate’—at which point, apparently, Nixon finally convinced conservatives he could be one of them…Lying is an initiation into the conservative elite.”
• Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice (Pappas, S., LiveScience, Jan. 2012)
• Michele Bachmann’s Holy War (Taibbi, M., June 2011)
• The More Republicans Know About Politics, The More They Believe Conspiracy Theories. Mooney, C., Mother Jones (Jan. 2013)
• Performance benefits of depression: Sequential decision making in a healthy sample and a clinically depressed sample.  (von Helversen, B.; Wilke, A., et al; Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Apr 18, 2011) “acutely depressed participants had higher thresholds for accepting options and made better choices than either healthy participants or those recovering from depression.”
• Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.  (Jost JT, Glaser J, Kruglanski AW, Sulloway FJ. 2003) (pdf)
• Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers. (Callaway, E., New Scientist, Feb. 2009)
• Priests are 100 times more likely to be pedophile sex offenders than the general population.
• Reactance. Psychological reactance theory. Moss, S. (Oct. 2008)
• Red Family, Blue Family. (Muder, D., Feb. 2005)
• Red Light States: Who buys online porn? (Edelman, B., Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 23 No. 1, 2009) (pdf) “[S]ubscriptions are also more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality. In states where more people agree that ‘Even today miracles are performed by the power of God’ and ‘I never doubt the existence of God,’ there are more subscriptions to this service. Subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where more people agree that ‘I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage’ and ‘AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.’”
• Republican Sex Scandals.
• The Right-Wing Id Unzipped. Lofgren, M., Truthout (Feb. 2012) A Retired “GOP Operative Who Left the Cult” discusses right-wing psychopathology and the insightful work of Max Blumenthal, Robert Altemeyer, and Wilhelm Reich.
• Study Suggests ‘Moral Purity’ May Overcome Right-Wing Resistance to Environmental Science: Feelings of disgust may be the key to saving the planet from global warming. Rosenberg, P., Alternet. (Mar. 2013)
• They Fucking Hate You.  Cole, J. (Feb. 2012).
• The ugly delusions of the educated conservative. Mooney, C., Salon (Feb. 2012)

CRITICAL THINKING: [See SCIENCE & SKEPTICISM below.]

DEMOCRACY [See also HUMAN RIGHTS below.]

• The 99.99998271%/Simon Wood.  “Direct democracy and human rights.”

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:  [See RAPE, ABUSE & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE below.]

NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY? CLICK HERE.

ECONOMICS:

[Palace posts that reference economics can be found here.]

• 9 Economic Facts That Will Make Your Head Spin. Parramore, L.S., AlterNet (Feb. 2013)
• 9 Things the Rich Don’t Want You to Know about Taxes. Johnston, D.C. (April 2011)
• Alan Simpson Attacks AARP, Says Social Security Is ‘Not A Retirement Program‘. Grim, R. (May 2011)
• The Austerity Debacle. Krugman, P., The New York Times (Jan. 2012)
• The Black And White Numbers – Democrats Are Better Than Republicans. Qadeer, U., addictinginfo.org (Jun. 2012). “Democrats have financially outperformed GOP governments economically and are offering actual plans as opposed to simple repeal ideas. Republicans have carved societies that are drastically behind in economic, living standards, or academic progress.”
• Conscience of a Liberal/Paul Krugman.
• The G Spot/Kathy G.
• How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico’s murderous drug gangs. Vulliamy, E., The Guardian (Apr. 2011)
• Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore.  Frank, Robert H. (Oct. 2010)
• The Quiet Coup.  Johnson, S., The Atlantic (May 2009)
• Running in the red: How the U.S., on the road to surplus, detoured to massive debt.  Montgomery, L. (April 2011)
  
• Understanding Mobility in America (key findings). Center for American Progress (2006); full report (pdf).

EDUCATION:

[Palace posts that reference education can be found here.]

• Abstinence-only education and teen pregnancy rates, Stanger-Hall KF, Hall DW., Department of Plant Biology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, U.S. PLoS One. 2011;6(10):e24658. Epub (Oct. 2011)
• Build a School in the Cloud.  Mitra, S. TED Talks (Feb. 2013) (VIDEO)
• The American Family in Black and White: A Post-Racial Strategy for Improving Skills to Promote Equality, Heckman, J., IZA Discussion Paper (February 2011) (pdf)
• Preliminary Findings of ACLU “Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes” Campaign. Prepared for U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (Aug. 2012) (pdf)
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Education.

ENEMIES [see also CONSERVATIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER above]:

• 700 Club.  The television ministry of one Rev. Pat Robertson. Here he is suggesting a man beat his “rebellious” “child-like” wife.
• Catholic League.  A one-man “league” comprised of serial self-promoter and ultra-rightwing Catholic dipshit Bill Donohue (a.k.a. ultra-rightwing Catholic dipshit Antonin Scalia).
• Concerned Women for America.  Christian Patriarchy Enforcement Brigades, Women’s Auxiliary Unit.
• Ann Coulter.  Quoth she: “I’m a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don’t you ever forget it.”
• Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.  Biblical Patriarchy 101:  lots of submission for women (no, not the fun kind), strict gender binaries, anti-feminist, anti-gay, etc. Affiliated with The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
• Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).  The original blueprint for all the corrupt, corporatist conservative Democrats who now control the party:  supportive of Social Security privatization, NAFTA, the Iraq War, charter schools, “welfare reform,” and Bush’s No Every Child Left Behind Act while rigorously opposing single-payer universal health care and denouncing anti-war activism as “anti-American fringe” and “the loony left.”  They put in charge this smirking sociopath who promptly ran it into the ground, eclipsed by the right-wing Dem think tank Third Way — which espouses exactly the same rotten conservative policies and “principles.”
• Eagle Forum.  Monument to Phyllis Schlafly’s spectacular career as an anti-feminist, made possible by…feminism.
• Family Research Council. Patriarchy Central: anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, anti-liberal, anti-sex, anti-secular, anti-equality, anti-awesome.
• Focus on the Family. James Dobson’s personal cult; the “focus” is on authoritarian marriage and parenting, with a heaping helping of Jeezuz.
• Fox News.
• Rush Limbaugh.  Bloviating chickenhawk narcissist pig with a radio audience of millions.
• Mission: America.  Headquarters for right-wing Christian Janet Harvey’s “war against homosexuality.”
• Republican National Committee.  “Hub of all information related to the Republican Party.”
• Third Way.  A Democratic “think tank” dedicated to economic conservatism, the ideology currently dominating the power center of the party.

ENERGY + ENVIRONMENT:

[Palace posts that reference energy can be found here.]
[Palace posts that reference environment can be found here.]

• 99 One-Liners That Rebut Climate Change Denier Talking Points. Romm, J., and Cook, J., Alternet (May 2013)
• America’s Nuclear Spent-Fuel Time Bombs: Japan’s nuclear disaster should serve as a wake-up call for the United States, Alvarez, R. (Jun. 2011)
• Another Breakthrough in Hydrogen Energy Challenges Fossil Fuel Dominance. Pietrowski, A., Walking Times (Apr. 2013)
• Climate Change Compendium: tracking our planetary calamity.  Peter Daou’s “continuously updated compilation of news and opinion on our ever-worsening climate calamity.”
• DESMOGBLOG.com. “Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science.”
• Dirty Beaches in NYC.  (June 2011)
• Fracking our Food Supply. Royte, E., The Nation (Nov. 2012) “Ever since a heater-treater unit… blew out on a drill pad a half-mile upwind of Schilke’s ranch, her own creek has been clogged with scummy growth, and it regularly burps up methane…since the blowout, her creek has failed to freeze, despite temperatures of forty below…Soon, Schilke’s cattle were limping, with swollen legs and infections. Cows quit producing milk for their calves; they lost from sixty to eighty pounds in a week; and their tails mysteriously dropped off.”
• Fracking Ourselves to Death in Pennsylvania. Cantarow, E., The Nation (May 2013)
• Greenpeace.
• How gas drilling contaminates your food.  Estabrook, B. (May 2011)
• How to rid the seas of ‘plastic soup’? Wassener, B. (May 2011)
• Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition.
• Limerick nuclear generating station, Pottstown, PA, among most susceptible to quake.
• New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation Position on Indian Point Relicensing.
• N.J.’s Salem nuclear power plants showing their age.
• Nuclear facilities in the U.S.
• Ohio stiffens regulations after concluding that fracking caused earthquakes. Kane, M. (Mar. 2012)
• Polluting Democracy: Coal Plays Dirty on the Hill (Greenpeace report Jul. 2011) (pdf)
• Ramping Up Renewables. Report: Union of Concerned Scientists. (Apr. 2013) (pdf)
• Union of Concerned Scientists.
• The World’s Dump: Ocean Garbage From Hawaii to Japan. Marks, K., and Howden, D., The Independent UK (via Alternet) (Feb. 2008) “A ‘plastic soup’ of floating waste in the Pacific Ocean now covers an area twice the size of the continental U.S.”

FEMINISM: [see also PRIVILEGE and RAPE, ABUSE & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE below.]

[Palace posts that reference feminism can be found here.]

• The Advantages of a Wife at Home, Deutsh, B. (Oct. 2008)(cartoon).
• The Adventures of Gyno-Star. “Fighting the Forces of Evil and Male Chauvinism.” (WEB COMIC)
• Anti-Feminist Bingo I & II.
• But How Do You Know It’s Sexist? The #MenCallMeThings Round-Up, Doyle, S. (Nov. 2011)
• Crunk Feminist Collective.  “a space of support and camaraderie for hip hop generation feminists of color, queer and straight, in the academy and without…”
• Don’t Be That Guy.  Synecdochic (Apr. 2008)
• Equal Rights Amendment.
• The Everyday Sexism Project.  “catalogue instances of sexism experienced by women on a day to day basis”
• Feminism 101.  (Shakesville)
• Feminism boosts sexual satisfaction for both men and women. LiveScience Oct. 2007, reporting on Rudman LA & Phelan JE (2007). The interpersonal power of feminism: is feminism good for romantic relationships? Sex Roles (DOI 10.1007/ s11199-007-9319-9)
• Feminist Current.
• Feministe.
• Feminist Frequency. (Anita Sarkeesian)
• Feminist Ire.
• Fugitivus.net.
• Finally Feminism 101.  (FAQs)
• Gender Issues in the EU: How Brussels is Moving Toward Equality. Pancheri, G.  (INFN 2008) (pdf) [h/t a_ray_in_dilbert_space]
• HaifischGeweint.
• I Blame the Patriarchy.  “I Blame The Patriarchy is intended for advanced patriarchy-blamers. It is not a feminist primer.”
• Makers: Women Who Make America. Video documentary chronicling 50 years of U.S. women’s advancement.  PBS (Feb. 2013)
• Male Privilege Checklist.
• ManBoobz.  Adventures in misogyny.
• Mansplaining.
• No Place for a Woman. (American Public Media, American RadioWorks documentary) [h/t Jadehawk]
• Pandagon/Amanda Marcotte.
• Patriarchy for Dummies. Zvan, S. (May 2013)
• Queer Black Feminist.
• The Scientific Gender Gap. Lehrer, J., Wired (Mar. 2011)
• Shakesville/Melissa McEwan & Co.
• When Men Are Too Emotional To Have A Rational Argument. Dziura, J., TheGloss (Nov. 2012)
• XYOnline. [h/t Jadehawk]

FOOD:

[Palace posts that reference food can be found here.]
[Iris the Idiot's Kitchen can be found here.]

• CSAs. More.
• The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. Moss, M., The New York Times Magazine (Feb. 20, 2013)
• The Fat Nutritionist.
• GrowNYC Greenmarket.
• Iris the Idiot’s Kitchen.  “Because a feminist’s place is in the kitchen!” (Wait, wut?)
• Lifethyme Natural Market.
• Michael Pollan.

GODLESSNESS:

[Palace posts that reference godlessness can be found here.]

• American Atheists. “dedicated to working for the civil rights of atheists, promoting separation of state and church, and providing information about atheism.”
• Atheism+. “a safe space for people to discuss how religion affects everyone and to apply skepticism and critical thinking to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, GLBT issues, politics, poverty, and crime.”
• Atheists and Anger. Christina, G. (Oct. 2007)
• Butterflies and Wheels. Blog of Ophelia Benson.
• Children who have suffered because their parents chose prayer over medicine. (Mar. 2013) (VIDEO)
• Richard Carrier Blogs.
• Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
• Evilbible.com.
• Freedom From Religion Foundation. “works to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism, and to promote the constitutional principle of separation between church and state.”
• Free Will. Harris, S. (Mar. 2012) (VIDEO)
• Greta Christina’s blog. “atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind.”
• Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence.
• Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Whitson, J. A., & Galinsky, A. D. Science, 322, 115-117 (2008).(pdf) “The need to be and feel in control is so strong that individuals will produce a pattern from noise to return the world to a predictable state.”
• Moral behavior in animals. de Waal, F., TED Talks (VIDEO) (Filmed Nov. 2011 / Posted Apr. 2012) (See also: LIVING LINKS: Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution)
• Pharyngula. Blog of the Palace Patron Saint, PZ Myers, comprising “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.”
• Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.
• What’s Wrong With the Ten Commandments?, Galyor, A.N. (1983)
• Why I am No Longer a Christian by Evid3nc3.
• Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?

HEALTH CARE:

[Palace posts that reference health care can be found here.]

• Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us. Brill, S., Time Magazine (Feb. 2013)
• Health Insurance and Mortality Rates in US Adults.  Wilper, A. et al. Am J Public Health. 99(12): 2289–2295 (Dec. 2009) “Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44 789 deaths per year in the United States, more than those caused by kidney disease…”
• In Defense of Canada. Carroll, A. (June 2011)
• Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma.  Grim, R., Huffington Post (August 2009)
• Public And Private Health Insurance: Stacking Up The Costs. Ku, L. and Broaddus, M., Health Affairs (Jun. 2008) “total medical spending is much lower when coverage is provided by Medicaid or SCHIP than it is when coverage is provided by private insurance.”
• Science Based Medicine. Exploring issues and controversies in the relationship between science and medicine.
• Single Payer.  “The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $8,160 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 50.7 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.” (Physicians for a National Health Program)

HUMAN RIGHTS: [See also DEMOCRACY above.]

• The 99.99998271%/Simon Wood.  “Direct democracy and human rights.”
• Amnesty International.
• Human Rights Watch.
• United Nations/Human Rights portal.
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  (United Nations.)

HUMOR:

[Place posts that reference humor can be found here.]

• Christwire.
• Cracked.
• FAIL blog.
• fstdt.com (Fundies Say The Darndest Things) “massive Internet archive containing selected excerpts of many hilarious, ignorant, bigoted, bizarre, and terrifying posts written by fundies on online message boards.”
• Happy Place.
• Jesus Dress-Up.
• The Onion.

IRAQ: [See also WAR below]

[Palace posts that reference iraq can be found here.]

• Iraq: The Democrats’ War. Zunes, S., truthout (Sep. 2010)
• Iraq: War’s legacy of cancer. Jamail, D., Al Jazeera (Mar. 2013) “Contamination from Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions and other military-related pollution is suspected of causing a sharp rises in congenital birth defects, cancer cases, and other illnesses throughout much of Iraq.” [TRIGGER WARNING: graphic photos.]
• Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter. Blix, H., CNN (Mar. 2013)
• So was it a war for oil? Muttitt, G. (Mar. 2013)
• Where were the journalists?  Amanpour, C., CNN (Mar. 2013) (VIDEO)
• Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big Oil. Juhasz, A., CNN  (Mar. 2013)

MEDIA:

[Palace posts that reference media can be found here.]

• Alternet
• Al-Jazeera
• Atlantic
• Economist
• FAIR
• The Gist (American Circus/General Gandhi)
• Global Research
• The Guardian
• Haaretz
• Harpers
• Media Matters
• MediaSmarts.  Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy.
• Mother Jones
• The Nation
• New Yorker
• New York Times
• Village Voice
• Washington Post

POLITICAL: [See also: ENEMIES above.]

• @LOLGOP
• alicublog/Roy Edroso
• The Big Con
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Crooked Timber
• Crooks & Liars
• The Daily Beast
• Empire Burlesque/Chris Floyd
• firedoglake
• Glenn Greenwald
• Hullabaloo/Digby
• Lean Left
• Mark Morford
• No More Mister Nice Blog
• ohtarzie
• Orcinus/Dave Neiwert
• Power of Narrative/Arthur Silber
• The Regressive Antidote
• rightwingwatch.org
• Stop Me Before I Vote Again/Michael J. Smith
• Matt Taibbi
• VastLeft
• Wild Wild Left

PRISON AND SENTENCING REFORM:

[Palace posts that reference prison & sentencing reform can be found here.]

• An Astonishing Argument for Why Violent Crime Rates Have Dropped: Less lead. It’s ridiculous -– until you see the evidence. Monbiot, G., Alternet (Jan. 2013)
• Pennsylvania judge sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling teens to prisons. Colagiovanni, L., Examiner (Apr. 2013)
• U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations, Lipak, A., New York Times (Apr. 2008)
• U.S. States Grapple with Exploding Prison Populations, Cardinale, M., ipsnews.net

PRIVILEGE:

• An Incomplete Guide to Not Creeping. Scalzi. J. (Aug 2012)
• Male Privilege Checklist.
• Of Dogs and Lizards: A Parable of Privilege.  Sindelókë (Jan. 2010) https://sindeloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/37/
• Privilege, Power, and Difference (excerpt), Johnson, A.G. [h/t sgbm]
• A primer on privilege: what it is and what it isn’t.
• Privilege Denying Dude.
• Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is. Scalzi, J. (May 2012)
• Things I don’t have to think about today. (Scalzi, J., Oct. 2010)

RAPE, ABUSE & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:

NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY? CLICK HERE.

[Palace posts that reference rape can be found here.]
[Palace posts that reference domestic violence can be found here.]

• 25 Facts about Rape in America.
• Abuse suspect calls taped. (NYTimes Feb. 2005) “75 percent of the time, the women who were victimized stop helping prosecutors, often after speaking to the men accused of abusing them.”
• Anita Sarkeesian at TEDxWomen 2012. (VIDEO)
• Brothel-based female child sex workers in Cambodia: Key health determinants and recommendations for change, Craig, L., Royal Tropical Inst. (Aug 2009)(pdf).
• Child prostitution: global health burden, research needs, and interventions, Willis, B. and Levy, B., The Lancet, Vol 359 (Apr 2002) (pdf).
• The Compliant Victim of the Sexual Sadist and the Proposed Canadian Defence of Coercive Persuasion. Chapman, F.E., The International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law – 22nd International Conference Codifying the Criminal Law: Modern Initiatives Dublin, Ireland (July 2008). (pdf)
• Hollaback.org.  Interactive global movement to end street harassment.
• How to Avoid an Abuser: Understanding Grooming, Young, K. (Jun. 2012)
• It happens all the time.  (Stories of street harassment.)
• Meet the Predators. (yesmeansyes) a summary of two large-sample surveys of undetected rapists.
• Men Can Stop Rape.
• Mythcommunication: It’s Not That They Don’t Understand, They Just Don’t Like The Answer. (March 2011)
• National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), CDC.  Executive Summary (pdf); Full report (pdf); Fact Sheet (pdf). (Nov. 2011)
• On “Husband-Battering”; Are Men Equal Victims? Ampersand (June 2004)
• RAINN: Rape Abuse and Incest National Network.
• Rape Culture 101. (Shakesville)
• Rape Fact Sheet. (pdf)
• Rape Myths and Facts.  Roger Williams University.
• Red Flags of Abuse.  (National Network to End Domestic Violence.)
• Schroedinger’s Rapist.
• The Science of Sexism: Primate Behavior and the Culture of Sexual Coercion. Johnson, E.M., Scientific American (Jul. 2011)
• Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work! 
• Slavering Beast Theory.
• Statistics.  Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (“RAINN”).
• Steubenville: Humiliation Was The Point Of The Exercise. Thomas, Yes Means Yes (Mar. 2013)
• SurvivorManual.com.
• Understanding the Predatory Nature of Sexual Violence. Lisak, D., University of Massachusetts Boston (undated) (pdf)
• A woman walks into a rape, uh, bar. Jacobs, H. (Jun. 2009) “the inability to hear rape ‘jokes’ without flashbacks, Hulk rage, and ‘air quotes’ is one of the enduring parting gifts of a rapist.”

RATIONALITY:  [See SCIENCE & SKEPTICISM below.]

SCIENCE & SKEPTICISM:

[Palace posts that reference science can be found here.]
[Palace posts that reference critical thinking can be found here.]

• Edge.org.
• Field Guide to Critical Thinking.  Lett, J., Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, (Fall 1990)
• JREF. (James Randi Educational Foundation.)  An educational resource on the paranormal pseudoscientific and the supernatural.  Longstanding offer of $1 million prize to “anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”
• lesswrong.com.  “A community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality.”
• LIVING LINKS: Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution.
• List of cognitive biases (Wikipedia)
• List of common misconceptions (Wikipedia)
• MediaSmarts.  Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy.
• Meet the Anthropologists Who Are Demolishing the Idea There’s Such a Thing as “Human Nature”, Watters, E., Alternet (Feb. 2013) “Joe Henrich and his colleagues are shaking the foundations of psychology and economics—and hoping to change the way human behavior and culture is understood.”
• National Geographic.
• Natural History Magazine.
• Nature.
• Pharyngula. Blog of the Palace Patron Saint, PZ Myers, comprising “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.”
• Psychic Defective: Sylvia Browne’s History of Failure. Shaffer, R. and Jadwiszczok, A., CSI (Mar. 2010)
• Rationality vs. intelligence. Stanovich, K., Project Syndicate (Apr. 2009)
• Rationally Speaking. “a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York.”
• Science Based Medicine. “Exploring issues and controversies in the relationship between science and medicine.”
• Scienceblogs.com.
• Science Magazine.
• Science Minus Details.
• Skepchick.org
• Skeptico.blogs.com
• The Skeptic’s Dictionary.
• Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe.
• Why Evolution is True/Jerry Coyne

SEX & SEXUALITY:   Go to THE BEDROOM.

You must be 18+ to hang out in the Palace Bedroom.
NSFW.

[Palace posts that reference sex & sexuality can be found here.]
[Palace posts that reference LGBT can be found here.]

The Palace Bedroom.

SKEPTICISM: [See SCIENCE & SKEPTICISM above.]

SURVEILLANCE STATE:

[Palace posts that reference surveillance state can be found here.]

• Department of Justice has too much access to our electronic communications, not too little. Privacy SOS (May 2013)
• FBI knew of plot to kill OWS activists, remained silent. RT (Jan. 2013) (VIDEO)
• Newly Released Drone Records Reveal Extensive Military Flights in US. Lynch, J., EFF.org (Sep. 2012) Includes interactive map of domestic drone authorizations.
• Surveillance Monitor 2007 – International country rankings.  privacyinternational.org (Dec. 2007) “In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the “black” category, denoting endemic surveillance.”
• Top Secret America, Priest, D. & Arkin, W., Washington Post (2010).  “Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.”
• White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity.  (Nakashima, E., Washington Post, Jul. 2010)

TERRORISM:

• The FBI’s Bomb Factory: Agency of Fear.  St. Clair, J., counterpunch.org (Mar. 2013)
• The Myth of Muslim Support for Terror. Ballen, K. The Christian Science Monitor (Feb 2007)
• Terrorism and the other Religions. Cole, J. (Apr. 2013) “Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States.”

TORTURE: 

[Palace posts that reference TORTURE can be found here.]

• Camp Nama: British personnel reveal horrors of secret US base in Baghdad. Cobain, I. The Guardian (Apr. 2013)
• Fairchild’s torture ties extend their reach: Post-9/11 clashes questioned modes of interrogation. Vestal, S., The Spokesman-Review (Nov. 2012)
• United Nations Convention Against Torture.
• Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas.

USA:

[Palace posts that reference USA can be found here.]

• Adam vs. The Man.
• Affidavit of James Risen, in support of Risen’s Motion asking the Court in United States v. Jeffrey Alexander Sterling to quash the government’s subpoena to compel Risen to reveal his confidential source(s) of the information contained in chapter 9 of his 2006 book, State of War.   Risen is the New York Times reporter who originally broke the stories on the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and the Bush administration’s obtaining enormous amounts of financial and banking information about American citizens from the SWIFT system, all without any oversight, Congressional authorization, or warrants. (June 2011) (pdf)
• Free Speech: Just a Recent Fad?  Lukianoff, G., Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Huffington Post (Oct. 2012)
• United States Constitution.

WAR

[Palace posts that reference WAR can be found here.]

• Code Pink.  Women for Peace.
• Cost of War.
• Iraq: The Democrats’ War. Zunes, S., truthout (Sep. 2010)
• Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan. International Human Rights And Conflict Resolution Clinic (Stanford Law School) and Global Justice Clinic (NYU School Of Law) (Sep. 2012) (pdf)
• Obama’s drone war kills ‘others,’ not just al Qaida leaders. Landay, J.S., McClatchy Newspapers (Apr. 2013)
• Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense For Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (“Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies.”) (Sep. 2004) (pdf)
• Veterans for Peace.

WIKILEAKS

[Palace posts that reference WIKILEAKS can be found here.]

• How Sweden Collaborated With CIA on Renditions and Framing of Assange.  Rafik Saley, Okoth Osewe, and John Goss, newsjunkiepost.com (Dec. 2012)
• Media and US Government True Betrayers in Bradley Manning Case.  Wood, S., The 99.99998271% (Mar. 2013)
• Pfc. Bradley E. Manning’s Statement for the Providence Inquiry. via Alexa O’Brien (Feb 2013)