Linkland.

The NY Times reports on how proponents of nuclear power in Japan (both political and private interest) had ignored power plant related safety concerns for more than a decade. Not only that, but it looks like the cooling systems at Fukushima might have been manually shutdown. If this is true, the entire crisis might have been the result of human error.

In the meantime, some people think that the situation in Fukushima is good for the whales. Now, I'm all for conservation, but I have absolutely zero use for people who feel more concern for animals than they do for other humans.

A lot of attention has been paid to the health problems attendant upon female modeling (as well as on the unrealistic body image expectations such modeling creates). But what of male modeling? Turns out, that industry is just as unhealthy and just as damaging to body image perceptions.

Ezra Klein discusses the miscalculations made by Democrats in their campaign to get the debt ceiling raised. Of course, part of the problem is that the majority of Americans just don't understand what a failure to raise the debt ceiling limit will mean for the country. But still, it looks like some serious ball-dropping on the part of Democrats took place recently.

In the world of golf (yeah, I follow golf--what?), K.J. Choi became the first Asian man to win the Players Championship this past weekend in a sudden death playoff against David Toms.

And in more good news, the Uganda "Kill the Gays" bill appears to be well and truly dead. Thank god.

Oh, yeah, and it's a good day to be a SF Giants fan. (Actually, it's always a good day, but today's especially good.) The Giants will become the first professional sports team to create a video for the "It Gets Better" campaign. The video campaign seeks to combat the psychological effects of teenage bullying on LGBTQ youth. Go Giants!

MOAR Linkland.

Because the world is just so interesting.

Cibo Matto return! (And it's about darn time.)

Ezra Klein talks to Robert Rubin about the difference between the 1995 and 2011 debt ceiling crises.

Jeffrey Goldberg calls the NY Times out on their deplorable coverage of rape cases, and specifically points out some of the ethical questions involved in journalistic treatments of this particular crime.

An interview with the incomparable Stephen Hawking. More personal than scientific, but cool nonetheless.

Murder ballads have always been interesting, especially when you consider the gender-weighting that typically goes on in them. Murder ballads performed by women are therefore even more interesting.