In No Particular Order

Because my brain is either howling mad or gone out for pizza.

• Goblinbooks:  Why waiting for haters to die off is going to take a long time.  With bonus unpleasant simile.  Maybe not while you're eating.

  Don't ever think progress just happens. Not here. People fight wars and they lynch whole populations to make sure progress doesn't happen. And they can beat back tolerance, kindness, and enlightenment for a long, long time, before old age and irrelevance claim them.

• In case you thought I was exaggerating the other day,  Republic of T's "Wingnut Week in Review:  'Diva Demands' for the GOP Debate" lists the demands (with snark).  And Dr. Ben Carson (in video) tries to revive old conspiracy theories (and reminds me that I am actually three degrees of separation from President Obama).  How The Onion keeps up is a complete mystery.
• Noam Chomsky at AlterNet.  'Nuff said.
• WiredSister's thoughts on conscientious objection at Noli Irritare Leones.

  When I read about Kim Davis, I am almost irresistibly drawn to sarcasm. That impulse lasts about five minutes, until I remember my own war resister/draft counselor past. And then I want to ask the people who were out there with me, in the same struggle: Aren’t we the people who struggled for the rights of conscience against military service and payment of war taxes? Didn’t some of us go to jail for it? Now, suddenly, conscientious objection is making a comeback. Can’t we just enjoy the new-found fashionability of our earlier commitments? If we are to be serious about the relationship between law and conscience, don’t we have to look at it honestly and without snark? If we can’t do that, don’t we have to accept the possibility that we support the conscientious rights of only those people whose consciences agree with ours, or, worse still, that conscience is merely a childhood disease to be outgrown in adulthood?

• "Heckler's veto" case.  [ETA:  Ken White, Popehat.]

There are other readings, but I've mislaid them.  Besides, this slice of pizza is getting cold.