Sen. Lindsey Graham urges government contractors to lay people off just before the election:
I'm urging every defense industry that could be affected by sequestration to put your employees on notice before November … The more it becomes real to us as to what comes the nation's way, the more likely we are to solve the problem.
Stop The Deportations responds to the big DHS announcement:
After a two-year campaign urging the Obama administration to stop the deportations of spouses of gay and lesbian Americans, we welcome the announcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that it will formally recognize same-sex marriages as part of its year-old ‘prosecutorial discretion' deportation policy and other related enforcement matters.
… This move is significant beyond the immigration context, as it constitutes the first time any agency of the federal government has created a policy explicitly recognizing same-sex marriages.
At least six dead in shooting at Sikh temple:
The shootings occurred about 10:30 a.m. at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in the town of Oak Creek, just south of Milwaukee, officials said …
The New York Post didn't think much of Friday's Chick-fil-A kiss-in, but did at least offer this hilarious description of a homophobe:
… Nearby, an older gent who refused to give his name was freaking out.
“That's disgusting! That's not why I came here,” he said.
“Why don't they go to Sbarro and do that? Why don't they go to Subway?”
There is such a thing as a "Chick-on-chick" sandwich, and you can get it in Houston.
A BuzzFeed contributor builds a treacly but compelling case for Matthew Mitcham's adorableness.
Vietnam's first Pride Parade:
… it was a scene that was unimaginable a few years ago, when Vietnam still labeled homosexuality a "social evil" alongside drug addiction and prostitution. The country's gay community was once so underground that few groups or meeting places existed, and it was taboo to even talk about the issue.
Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corporation is under investigation for money laundering.
Mass death at the beginning of the last millenium linked to a super volcano:
Scientific evidence – including radiocarbon dating of the bones and geological data from across the globe – shows for the first time that mass fatalities in the 13th century were caused by one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the past 10,000 years.
Such was the size of the eruption that its sulphurous gases would have released a stratospheric aerosol veil or dry fog that blocked out sunlight, altered atmospheric circulation patterns and cooled the Earth's surface …
Dick Cavett: Gore Vidal hates being dead …
… unless of course we die and go somewhere where you can write, drink, have sex, appear on TV and, above all else, talk.
… he was — I feel safe in saying — the best talker since Oscar Wilde … You felt you had just had a lovely bath in the elegant and witty use of our sadly declining English language. Gore's talk, if transcribed, could be printed without editing. If there seemed to be some preening in his prepared remarks on television — and he knew a good line was worth repeating — it was outweighed by the quality of the verbal prose.