Tuesday evening roundup

China, Russia and Ecuador are such bastions of civil liberties and press freedom.

I really wish that people would quit framing the human rights and animal welfare aspects of agriculture as mutually exclusive; let's all care about and fight for both.

A person of the kind we need in elected office has no interest in staying. But these Texas legislators warm my heart.

The normally non-judgmental @vegan meets his match:

I just realized that people are idiots >>> @Windica Lol and there IS a "Bring Back Paula Deen" FB page and they ARE boycotting SF now.
— Vegan (@vegan) June 24, 2013

I'm just looking at the bright side (i.e., people boycotting Smithfield).

Check out this carbon footprint calculator and note what a difference forgoing meet makes. And this dude has no agenda.

If nothing else matters to you, care about climate change for the wine.

Care about the Great Lakes, too; in lieu of microbeads, exfoliate with pumice, oatmeal, apricot or walnut husks.

So, the upside of my expensive roof debacle was that I got a white roof, and I can definitely feel the difference. That article (yes, I know slide format is annoying) is actually quite useful; I learned stuff and I'm pretty aware of home energy-saving tips (having done volunteer weatherization in the neighborhood, etc.).

GM wheat was not planted by anti-GMOers.

Some parents are so entitled. Your childcare needs are your problem; exams are stressful enough without screaming babies.

Have we talked about how telling your kids that they're fat isn't helpful? Leave it to the commenters to miss the point; you can/should still talk to your kids about their weight; just do it the right way. Also, I know that wanting for others what one values herself may be seen as cultural imperialism and such, but I want for women to free themselves of body issues. It's amazing. I know how much easier it is to say, especially when you're on the other side, and I occasionally have relapses (I've been eating a lot of olives, which pushes my gut out half-way to the moon) but I want you to have a healthy relationship with food because it's feels awesome.

I'm with Miranda Kerr on this one: I don't want to wear the pants in a relationship (hell, I don't want to wear physical pants, either, but that's not the point). The pants are a relative, shifting concept--it doesn't connote dominance (not to me, anyway). I'm not gender scholar, either, but I don't think it's a bad idea for guys to take the proverbial wheel.

Spend your money well:

One of the biggest mistakes we all make with our money is that we fail to use it in ways that maximize the amount of time we spend engaged in activities that make us happy. Instead, we often accidentally use money in ways that seem like they will make us happy, but instead doom us to unhappy time.

Take buying a nice house in the suburbs. It seems like a great idea. In fact most Americans see owning a house as a key part of living the American dream. And when you buy a house in the ‘burbs, you’re thinking of all the family barbecues you’ll have on the lawn. But what you’re not thinking enough about is the fact that you’ve just doomed yourself to a two-hour commute—in heavy traffic—every day for the rest of your life. Would having a large house be enough to make you happy at the end of a long day when you’d spent two hours in standstill traffic?

It's a trade-off, of course (not size vs. proximity, because that's an easy one; location vs. lower prices in general), but most of the time I feel that paying a crazy proportion of my income to live where I live is worth it.

It sucks when poop falls from the sky.

If this isn't a cautionary tale against drug use, I don't know what is. In other "your junk" news, it doesn't get its own subway seat. I could add other etiquette breaches to that list (and people can encroach when standing, too; some dude encroached into my territory this morning).