Link farm Sunday in April edition

In no particular order:

Nuclear power has saved about 1.84 million lives over the last 40 years due to the prevention of air pollution (via). A large expansion of it over the next four decades could save from 420 thousand to as many as 7.04 million additional lives.

This is one of the reasons there should be a large–scale increase in nuclear power generation. It is far less deadly than coal, once air pollution and mining deaths are accounted for, not to mention its carbon dioxide emissions’ causal factor in climate change. And nuclear power is safe; most scientists and experts believe that the risks from nuclear power are far overblown, especially considering the threat from global warming.

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The teams promoted and relegated for all levels of the IIHF Women’s World Championships are:

Tournament	Promoted	Relegated
World Championships	n/a	Czech Republic
Division IA	Japan?	Latvia
Division IB	France	Great Britain
Division IIa	Hungary	Slovenia
Division IIB	South Korea	South Africa
Division II Qualification	Turkey	n/a

Since the IIHF does not explicitly say, in both the news report and statistics page, whether Japan was promoted or merely the winner or Division I Group A, I still have no idea what was going on. By the looks of it no one was promoted to the main tournament in 2014, which will keep it at eight teams in 2015. That negates any point of winning the tournament this year, which is a shame. I hope I’m wrong, and that a better explanation is forthcoming. Update: Another possibility is that there will be some sort of qualifier series, like a best–of–three between Japan and whoever wins Division I Group A next year.

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Quote of the day from Vyckie Garrison, the co–founder of No Longer Qivering:

“Fanaticism will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”

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Yes! JJ, the Unrepentant Old Hippie, lives. She’ll be returning to blogging soon.

You go girl!

I can’t say I endorse her methods, but still this is full of win.

International human rights groups ought to defend this woman, as she is likely to face heavy jail time for standing up for her rights.

Update 2012–09–22: According to information I found at Muslimah Media Watch, attacks against such clerics are not rare, and that the particular cleric that was beaten did not file charges, although the local judiciary might still do so.

A question

How exactly are laws preventing same–sex couples who really want to get married from actually getting married supposed to protect the sanctity of this 72–day marriage, a marriage that, unlike many other things, actually was over by Christmas?

The Queen of Snark returns

An empty hole in the blogosphere has been filled, as JJ the Unrepentant Old Hippie has returned.

Welcome back.

Jessica leaves Feministing

It’s been a sad little while for the feminist blogosphere. First JJ, of Unrepentant Old Hippie, quit, and now Jessica Valenti has announced that she’s leaving Feministing.

In hindsight, this looks inevitable. Jessica had significantly stepped back from Feministing after her daughter was born in August. Samhita et. al. had basically succeeded Jessica after that time. Jessica’s reasons for (officially) moving on now are basically to make way for other feminists to step in. Despite Jessica moving on, Feministing will still continue to run and blog.

This saddens me. Feministing was on my blogroll from the very start of this blog, and Jessica was on of the bloggers whose posts pushed me into blogging. With all that in mind, good luck after Feministing, Jessica.

JJ leaves blogging

One of my favourite bloggers, JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie, has announced that she is no longer in bat country as she is leaving blogging.

This saddens me. I always enjoyed her snark. I even suggested her blog to others. JJ was always covering the issue of reproductive rights with full feminist credentials. She was clearly full of the strongest stuff out there, as anyone else who read the works of Lieshite, Nurse Stanek, SUZIE ALLCAPS, and other deplorable wingnut rubbish would have gone batshit nuts years ago. But not JJ. The blogosphere is now a lot smaller now that she has left it. Of course, if she wants to guest blog for yours truly, she knows who to ask….

You will be missed JJ. Good luck after blogging and let’s hope you’ll return someday.