Linkstorm: The Quick Melange

On the sixth, Alan Turing, who's kind of a big deal in the two worlds of computers and beating Nazis, was denied a pardon for his 1952 conviction of being a homosexual. I don't have to like it, but I can understand it; you can't redefine a pardon just because someone was wronged, especially if it doesn't do anything more than Gordon Brown's official apology.

While I'm sure they're not...closely related, Russia has been cock-blocking aid to Syrian citizens protesting against the government while dismissing their own protests, all under a rising suicide culture in their teenagers. What does it all mean? I think it points to a conspiracy. Singular.

I don't know what this is for or who this woman is, but I do know I like it.

Did you know 98% of women who identify themselves as Catholic use contraceptives? Well, that's just the ones that have sex. Maybe Catholic organizations who hire non-Catholics should try to preach their principles to their cohorts instead of preaching them to save a quick buck.

Smoking marijuana within two hours of operating a vehicle has been found to double a person's chances of being in a serious car accident. Not surprisingly, there's a positive correlation between the amount of THC in a person's system and whether that person died in the crash. Surprisingly, the entire io9 article never even uses the word "marijuana."

Gonorrhea is becoming untreatable. I mean, a lot of conditions are becoming untreatable, but...y'know...that's your dick.

Apparently, Sesame Street in Afghanistan is a thing.

A mere four years after becoming the first democratically elected president of Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed resigned and later claimed he was forced out in a coup. Violence clashes have pockmarked the capitol amidst protests and a warrant for the former president's arrest. The last report has The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group--the group charged with policing non-democratic actions of Commonwealth states--preparing to send a mission to the country. Here's hoping everything is on the up-and-up.

[I was going to put a picture of Maldives up here for scale, but you can make a map of Maldives from home with these simple instructions:

1) Draw some freckles between India, Somalia, and Malaysia

2) Mash up half of those freckles into an airport.

Maldives!]

Rats apparently have empathy. More than Rick Santorum, anyway. So, if we test rats because it's unethical to test humans in the same way...then at what point of testing creatures for complex emotional reactions do we realize they're too emotionally complex to continue testing? I propose an experiment!