Falx

Ahead of the election, Florida Republicans took overt steps to make voting lines longer in Florida and to make voting harder, to make registering to vote harder even. Governor Rick Scott signed into law new requirements that made voter registration drives so legally perilous, that even the hearty League of Women voters gave up trying. Rick Scott cut early voting in Florida almost in half.

And when it became clear that Florida voters were facing eight-hour lines for early voting, Governor Rick Scott refused to put any of those lost days back.

Republican Governor Rick Scott refused to do anything to shorten the lines, even though not everybody could stand in the marathon lines that he and Florida Republicans created by policy. In the after-election studies of what happened this year, it is reported that at least 200,000 Florida voters ultimately gave up and walked away from the polls. They had to because of the lines.

At least 200,000 voters who wanted to vote who did not make it through the epic journey from the end of the line to the voting booth, at least 200,000, maybe more.

That did not happen by accident. Making voting harder was policy in Florida and in several other states as well. Republican-controlled states, because it was Republican policy.

—Rachel Maddow on voting legislation for ’The Rachel Maddow Show’ for Thursday, February 13th, 2013 (via inquisitivebibliophile)

(Source: nbcnews.com, via inquisitivebibliophile)

You may not agree with a woman, but to criticize her appearance — as opposed to her ideas or actions — isn’t doing anyone any favors, least of all you. Insulting a woman’s looks when they have nothing to do with the issue at hand implies a lack of comprehension on your part, an inability to engage in high-level thinking. You may think she’s ugly, but everyone else thinks you’re an idiot.

—Hillary Clinton  (via girlbabe)

(Source: smellslikegirlriot, via scarletjedi)

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.

—

Aaron Freeman “You Want A Physicist To Speak at your Funeral” (source: npr)

xD

(via infopunkie)

(Source: lonelyheartsdeathmetal, via scarletjedi)