Who needs real people with WiFi around

the-awesomer:

Best. Cookies. Ever.

thedailywhat:

Mother Nature Win of the Day: Andrey Pavlov‘s photographs are so legit, they should be included in Barney Stinson’s office collection of motivational posters.

This one would be captioned: “Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.” ~Charles de Gaulle

[mentalfloss]

thedailywhat:

Knit-In of the Day: The “Snatchel Project” from Government Free VJJ takes a creative approach toward combating the GOP’s ongoing War on Women (or WOW — as in: Wow, are you really waging a war on women?) by inviting knitters and crocheters alike to knit or crochet a vagina or uterus, and mail the result to their male Senator or Congressional Representatives.

Their message: “If they have their own, they can leave ours alone!”

Patterns are available on the group’s site; hand-delivery of the “gifts” is forthcoming. If you don’t know how to knit or crochet, no worries: There’s a how-to section on the site.

[mojo.]

Haha, the most creative “send stuff in” campaign ever.

thedailywhat:

On Kony 2012: I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes:

Stop sending me that video.

The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.

Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.

By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.

And as far as what they do with that money:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.

The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”

Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.

Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.

Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.

The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.

There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.

[kony2012.]

thedailywhat:

Laughing To Keep From Crying of the Day: Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) is the latest person-who-should-know-better to ironically fall for a satirical Onion piece pointing out the crazy things pro-life people unchallengingly believe about Planned Parenthood.

[literallyunbelievable.]

Part of me loves it when The Onion claims a new victim. Who am I kidding, I love it with all my heart.

thedailywhat:

Are You Kidding Me With This? of the Day: In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Discount Gun Sales has partnered with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation to release a special pink “Hope Edition” (I sh*t you not) of the Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol. According to DGS, a “portion” of each sale will go to benefit Komen’s Seattle chapter.

Because nothing says “pro-life” like a machine designed to kill living things.

[wisconsingazette.]

thedailywhat:

Follow Up of the Day: Crafty hackers last night managed to hijack the official website of embattled breast-cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and express their dismay at the organization’s politically expedient decision to pull Planned Parenthood grants funding breast-cancer screenings for uninsured and underinsured low-income patients.

The switch was simple, but the message was clear: A banner previously calling women to join a run aimed at ridding the world of breast cancer now read “help us run over poor women on our way to the bank.”

The hack, which briefly redirected www.komen.org visitors to ww5.komen.org, was only the first in a series of notable developments that have taken place since the charity announced its controversial grant withdrawal on Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood, which called out Komen for bowing to “political pressure,” has managed to raise nearly $1 million from online donations and generous contributions from deep-pocketed supporters such as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

That number, which is continuing to rise, is nearly as much as Komen gave the nonprofit in 2010 and 2011 combined.

Pressure on Komen to reverse its decision is also mounting. 22 Democratic Senators have reportedly signed a strongly worded letter calling on Komen to resume its partnership with Planned Parenthood.

Additionally, Komen’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, has resigned to protest her employer’s defunding decision. The executive director of Komen’s Los Angeles County chapter has also stated her intention to resign.

For its part, Komen continues to deny anti-abortion links to its decision, despite their anti-choice SVP Karen Handel’s well-established goal to defund Planned Parenthood. (Handel recently retweeted a remark critical of Planned Parenthood that concluded with the phrase “cry me a freaking river.” The retweet was soon deleted.)

The organization is further denying its deletion of pro-Planned Parenthood comments from its Facebook page and message board, claiming it only removes comments for profanity.

One poignant comment Komen couldn’t delete was left by award-winning author Judy Blume on her Twitter feed: ”Susan Komen would not give in to bullies or to fear. Too bad the foundation bearing her name did. Support @PPact. Save lives.”

When even Judy Blume is calling you out, you should probably stop and listen.

[image: atlanticwire.]

thedailywhat:

Cy&H.