Sweet!

I promised you a substantial post.

This is not that post.

I have D&D tonight, and I had to make baklava for a work party tomorrow. 

Yummm....

Er, so...enjoy the links! Unless you're playing D&D with me tonight - then you can have leftover baklava AND links. Aren't you special?!

Links!

• Libraries, Books, & Authors
• Dec 15, 1936: George Orwell delivers the manuscript for The Road to Wigan Pier
• Things That Make the Librarian Angry 
• Seven ways schools kill the love of reading in kids — and 4 principles to help restore it 
• Librarians: the Latest Pawns in the Debate "It’s a lot easier to ignore the 100+ scholars, ignore the entire actual debate, and pick on the librarians. It’s not like any of them would be able to read carefully and pick apart that kind of BS, now is it." Eheheheheh....
• Religious Post: I did a review on Amazon for Sammy Adebiyi's  Christmas Stories You've Never Heard: Like How Baby Jesus Had A Cone Head And Stuff and thought I'd share the book here, as well, although I don't usually do book reviews here. If you are still looking for a quick, funny, and down-to-Earth (sometimes quite earthy) Christmas study for this year, you should go get it - it's free for Kindle right now. I also recommend it as a Sunday School Advent study, although you'd have to do that next year. Unless you're Sunday School is waaay behind on Advent study, in which case go get it and shame on you all.

• Net & Tech
• Project Goliath: Inside Hollywood's secret war against Google "At the beginning of this year, the MPAA and six studios...joined together to begin a new campaign against piracy on the web. A January 25th email lays out a series of legally and technically ambitious new tools, including new measures that would block infringing sites from reaching customers of many major ISPs. Documents reviewed by The Verge detail the beginning of a new plan to attack piracy after the federal SOPA efforts failed by working with state attorneys general and major ISPs like Comcast to expand court power over the way data is served. If successful, the result would fundamentally alter the open nature of the internet." Related: Sony Pictures Demands That News Agencies Delete ‘Stolen’ Data 
• Science
• NASA To Receive Significantly More Money Than It Asked For Next Year 
• Biodiversity: Life ­– a status report "At the upper rate, thousands of species are disappearing each year. If that trend continues, it could lead to a mass extinction — defined as a loss of 75% of species — over the next few centuries."
• Teen Invents Device To Protect His Grandfather From Alzheimer’s-Related Wandering Neat!
• Other
• All Michele Bachmann wants for Christmas is for Obama to bomb Iran "...Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said she attended the White House Christmas party this week and used the opportunity to lobby the President to bomb Iran." Someone please tell me this is another Onion story...
• FSU teacher resigns following Facebook posts 
• John Crawford’s Girlfriend Questioned for Over an Hour Before Cops Tell Her He Is Dead  "Police...shot Crawford moments after they arrived. Now, a video has surfaced showing the police interrogation of Thomas, who was accused of lying, threatened with jail time and asked if she was high on drugs."
• Police Investigating Texas Officer For Tasing 76-Year-Old Man