Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
How Liberals Dominate the Public Debate ~ The Left is much too adept at lulling the sheeple into a stupor through language manipulation. This article points out some of the specific tricks they use to trap the unsuspecting.

 
They Are Coming for Your Children; Teacup totalitarians target Connecticut home-schoolers ~ Because the Sandy Hook psycho-killer Adam Lanza was home-schooled for about 5 minutes – and only as a last resort – the Progressives bullies in Connecticut are now pushing the narrative that home-schooling creates monsters. Which of course necessitates vigilant scrutiny of children educated at home.
What’s their real motivation? ~

The Left’s organizing principle is control, and the possibility that children might commonly be raised outside of its control matrix is an existential threat from the progressive point of view. Institutions such as free markets and free speech terrify progressives, because they are the result of arrangements in which nobody is in control […]
 
If people discover that they can live without overseers in the matter of education, who knows in which other of life’s endeavors they might be inclined to go their own way?

 
Without Fracking, Oil Prices Would be at Record Highs ~ Well, here’s one bright spot in this otherwise depressing economy. Right now prices here in Michigan are lower than they’ve been in years; just paid under $3.00/gallon

“What the EIA Administrator is telling us is without fracking in the United States we’d be paying well over $4-a-gallon for gasoline and our economy would truly be in the tank,” said Daniel Kish, senior vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research, a non-profit research group that advocates for expansion of domestic oil production. “All oil and gas production in the United States is done with fracking and has been for decades.”

Furthermore; The Science Is Settled: Fracking Is Safe

“[t]hese results appear to rule out the migration of methane up into drinking water aquifers from depth because of horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing.” That is to say, in the rare cases where it occurs, gases are entering the water supply from outside the borehead as a result of faulty well construction or poor cementing, both of which are manageable problems.

 
Shortage in protective gear (polyethyelene) as Ebola spreads ~ Oh look! Evil petroleum is suddenly indispensible. If the enviro-obsessed would stop to consider the vast number of everyday products derived from oil (starting with everything made from plastic) they might actually realize that modern civilization would be impossible without it.

 
The Challenge: Pornography Pandemic ~ Porn is so pervasive on the internet it’s almost impossible to prevent even young kids from being exposed. And the results are pretty troubling ~

… research reveals that pornography consumption by children is associated with the following trends (just to name a few):
 
• Developing tolerance toward sexually explicit material, thereby requiring more novel or bizarre material to achieve the same level of arousal or interest.
• Overestimating the prevalence of less common, harmful sexual practices (such as group sex, bestiality and sadomasochistic activity.)
• Perceiving promiscuity as a normal state of interaction
• Developing cynical attitudes about love
• Developing a negative body image, especially for girls.

 
The article introduces the Initiative for porn-free Wi-Fi, which currently has a campaign aimed at getting McDonalds and Starbucks to take the lead in filtering their free Wi-Fi.

 
Mexican Gov’t Paying to Help Shield Illegal Immigrants in the U.S. from Deportation ~ OK. This one just might make my head explode. 😡

 
Religion: a looming mental health crisis ~ Seriously. This kind of ties in with the home-schooling story from Connecticut. We no longer live in a civil society where ideas can be discussed and debated in the marketplace of ideas. If you don’t go along with the Left’s intolerant ideology, you must be nuts.

“Christians, and those rejecting the me-generation liberal dogma of ‘if it feels good do it,’ are no longer tolerable by the intellectual and cultural elite,” says (Robert) George, 59, director of the James Madison program at Princeton University. Citing the political witch hunt that forced Brendan Eich’s departure as CEO of Mozilla for a small contribution to a conservative political cause, George said politically correct mobs “threaten us with consequences if we refuse to call what is good evil, and what is evil, good. They command us to confirm our thinking to their orthodoxy, or else say nothing at all.”

 
The Romans threw the Christians to the lions; the “Progressives” will throw us in a psych ward.