Blog Heap of Links for the day 7 April 2014

[Middle school student] suspended for twirling a pencil in math class. He says that a student (who had been allegedly bullying him) yelled to the teacher that "He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie." …would have to be evaluated by a therapist and cleared as a threat before being able to be around students….

[As] Good Morning America's Linzie Janis… reported on Brendan Eich… video footage of Westboro Baptist protesters with "God hates fags" and "soldiers die 4 fag marriage" signs appeared on-screen…. On the December 07, 2012 World News, ABC reporter Terry Moran used the same hateful Westboro Baptist footage for a story on the Supreme Court ruling over gay marriage.

It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency…. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate…

Mozilla recently forced its CEO, Brendan Eich, to resign over his personal support for traditional marriage. The firing followed a vicious smear campaign against Eich by dating website OKCupid, in which OKCupid blocked Mozilla users from visiting their website….

Patrick Air Force Base in Florida… officials confirmed… that the entire [POW/MIA] Missing Man Table display had been removed from a dining hall because of the Bible. A press statement said the inclusion of the Bible ignited “controversy and division.” … After consultation with several relevant organizations… [Note that in modern MilSpeak, "inclusion" means "exclusion."]

The online-only vote will take place Oct. 27 in Canada, when Leamington, Ontario, will become the first Canadian municipality to cast all ballots via an Internet-only voting process. … The municipality’s website says “this sole method of voting follows Council’s strategic plan to be environmentally friendly and to embrace technology.”

On April 5 Kansas lawmakers passed a bill nullifying city and county gun restrictions to "ensure that it's legal across the state to openly carry firearms." … only leaves room for cities and counties to ban "openly carried [firearms] inside public buildings."