By Iris Vander Pluym - 02.09.14

This is your body on conservatives.

On November 26, Marlise Munoz’s husband Erick found her unconscious on the floor. She had suffered a pulmonary embolism, her brain received no oxygen for some time, and she was pronounced dead at the hospital. As paramedics, Erick and Marlise understood well what “life support” meant, and Marlise had made clear that in such tragic circumstances she would not want such interventions.

But Marlise was 14 weeks pregnant, and Texas has a “pregnancy exclusion” law:  unlike other adults, a pregnant person may not have life support withdrawn even...

By Iris Vander Pluym – 01.12.14

Based on documents leaked by my 2016 write-in candidate for president Edward J. Snowden, Spiegel reports on an elite NSA unit called TAO (for "Tailored Access Operations"). Some of TAO's exploits take advantage of the notoriously crash-prone Microsoft Windows operating system. Not for useful intelligence gathering, silly. Just for giggles!

Anyone unfortunate enough to run a Windows OS has seen their share of automated crash notices like this:

By Iris Vander Pluym - 12.08.13

‘Tis the holiday season! Some of us are fortunate enough to be surrounded by wonderful friends and family, to whom giving gifts is sheer joy. On the other hand, there are people for whom we are obliged to provide token offerings at this time of year, even though they are terrible human beings singularly devoted to making the world a much worse place: a

By Iris Vander Pluym - 11.10.13

Some people really should just shut up.

First there's David Petraeus. After getting caught with his pants down* and being forced to resign as CIA Director, Petraeus has been a very, very busy conservative trying to reclaim some of his former glory. Petraeus is one of those smart conservatives—by far the most dangerous subspecies (think Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts). Seriously, this d00d has a Ph.D. in International Relations from Princeton.

By Iris Vander Pluym on 10.20.13

 [TRIGGER WARNINGS GALORE: violence, harassment, rape, terrorism,
contempt for agency, animal cruelty.]

Abortion providers in the United States have been the targets of terrorism* for decades. Since 1977 so-called “pro-life” elements have engaged in more than 175,000 reported acts of disruption (including bomb threats, anthrax scares, chemical assaults...