Speed Blogging August 9, 2013. On Acid Attacks, Climate Change, US Politics and the Financial Markets. Sorta.

Acid attacks tend to have female victims.  The numbers quoted in this article suggest that 75-80% of the victims are female. 

Why that is the case might be worth thinking about.  I'm not convinced with the argument made  by a surgeon in the article that the aim is to destroy someone's identity alone, because then it would have larger numbers of male victims.  My guess is that the aim is to destroy the public existence of the person or to destroy what the attacker feels is most important in women:  their looks.

Crooks and Liars writes about the seniors leaving the Republican Party.  Seems fascinating, though I have not looked into the data at all.  Also on their site, a story about the starved polar bear, perhaps as a cause of global climate change.  Warning:  the link leads to a picture.

This is a weird story about a Russian man writing in his own amendments to a credit card agreement.  It's kinda funny, except that you can guess who will ultimately pay the costs of it.   Or would pay the costs in the US.  I don't know if Russia is different, but the more we have rich oligarchies ruling the world the less likely it is that the members of those same oligarchies will bear the costs of much anything.  Says she, bitterly.