Link round-up for 11 August 2019

Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week.

o o o o o

Here are some of the most arrogant people on the internet.  Then there's this bozo.  Honorable mentions here.

Keep the kids entertained.

I don't think this is what the designers of the table had in mind.

Finnish blog names are.....interesting.

Don't hog public transit.

Please respect our privacy (found via Mock Paper Scissors).

500-year-old giant piss sharks can get you drunk.

There exist people who would take this seriously.

A historic haunted dildo returns home after an auction (found via Mendip).

Old age has a few perks.

Have fun with a golf ball (found via Mock Paper Scissors).

A cat gets justice in the end.

2, 5, 9.

Solarpunk has an interesting aesthetic.

I liked this comic about an ambiguous giantess.

Australian birds are too damn smart.  New Zealand birds were too damn big.

An iconic photo turned fifty this week.

Sea animals dream.

Some decidedly eccentric shoe designs here (sent by Willie).

It's the "golden" rule.

This arrow can point only one way.

Ghidorah the three-headed monster suffers an existential crisis.

Air travel these days can be an epic adventure.

Don't put an octopus on your face (how do people get this dumb?).

"Without imagination there is no horror."

"You already killed them."

Nan's Notebook hosts a discussion on the (not so) great unwashed.

RO posts about driver's licenses, art, the most pretentious shoes ever, and various other stuff.

A Minnesota museum hosts an exhibit of art made from plastic trash.

Tumblr is still doing this crap.  Well, if Verizon is looking to sell it, maybe things will improve.

Animation fandom is under siege from puritanical hysterics.

This incredible ignoramus is the House Minority Leader.

The town of Vulcan WV once used a novel approach to pressure the state into replacing a collapsed bridge.

Here are some immigration facts worth remembering.

Sometimes people are more honest than they intend.

The boomers vs. millennials thing is a manufactured distraction.

Crazy Eddie celebrates World Lion Day.

Guillermo del Toro wins his star, and shows the flag a bit.

This documentary on The Satanic Temple looks cool.  Also check out the Temple's own site.

Some magnificent libraries here (click pictures to enlarge).

"I've answered the question."

You can find good people in rough places.

Kings are just glorified bullies.

The enemy is unhappy with at least one of Trump's judges.

With the benefit of millennia of advances in hygiene, these idiots choose to literally wallow in filth.

Amazon can't replace libraries.

Hackwhackers has cartoons for the week.

This lawsuit could cost Facebook billions.  Expect a hard fight.

Trump wants to "retaliate" against countries that issue travel warnings about the US.

Feral hogs are a bigger problem than you think.

I suppose this was inevitable -- bullet-proof school accessories.

John Pavlovitz, being a Christian himself, is all the more aware of the hypocrisy of the Evangelicals.

Sex workers' fight for decriminalization is starting to gain support from US politicians.

The "Christian Science" cult is dying out.

Here are the worst bugs to have in your house.

If you're considering leaving Mormonism, this service could help (here's their site).

It's not Trump's fault.  Nothing is ever Trump's fault.

Yes, some atheists believe dumb things, but the person who wrote this is still dumber.

Obama, too, once visited survivors of a mass murder.

Conservatism as a movement is dying, but it's not going peacefully.

This "app" could be useful for tense encounters.

Suicide was Epstein's final escape.  But his death will make it harder, not easier, to hide evidence against other pedophiles in his circle.

Being a Trumpanzee is bad for business.  Very bad.

There's an easy way to hack corporate wifi networks.

A left-wing gun owner speaks out.

Advertisers are fleeing from Tucker Carlson's show.

Blaming video games is a long-established lie.

Looks like there's a bit of a breach between Trump and Fox News.

If you think large-scale gun confiscation is feasible, multiply this guy by a few tens of millions to get an idea of what you'd be dealing with (read the comments too).

The craptacular US health-coverage system is causing problems in Canada and Mexico.

Why do religionists engage in such obnoxious and ineffectual preaching?

Whoever supports the Republican party, supports this.

Past Supreme Court rulings prohibit many of the gun-control measures which have been suggested since the recent mass shootings (yeah, it's Fox, but the author is a judge and probably knows more about these issues than the average politician).

Trump used an orphaned baby as a prop in El Paso.  Overall his trip there was a disaster.

A former white nationalist explains why the problem is getting worse, and some things that can be done about it.

Sorry, this kind of shit is never going to be "normalized", even if your sympathizers manage to stop shooting people.

Women in sports lose out from "non-binary" nonsense.

Trump has pardoned the arsonists whose sentencing triggered the Malheur standoff.

A prestigious Catholic school was originally financed by slave-dealing.

The alt-right fetishizes losers.

Vaping may be linked to seizures.

Algae can be grown in deserts without needing fresh water, removes CO2 from the air, and has potential as a protein source.

There are lies being spread about the TMT project in Hawaii.

Here's why whales got so big.

There is probably life on the Moon now.

Rammstein's small pro-gay gesture in Russia has struck a nerve.

Moscow has seen a wave of pro-democracy demonstrations, leading Putin to put is own capital under what amounts to military occupation.

Spanish revolutionaries symbolically "executed" the Catholic Church in 1936.

Chile's experience shows the dangers of a "conscience objection" for medical staff from performing abortions.

The goals of BDS would mean the end of Israel.

An openly-gay man is running for President of Tunisia.

Yazidi survivors of the Dâ'ish (ISIL) genocide seek justice with German help -- though I don't think Europe can provide true justice to the perpetrators, since it doesn't have the death penalty.

India's Hindu-nationalist government hopes to settle hundreds of thousands of Hindus in its Muslim-majority Kashmir territory.  It has put Kashmir under a near-total communications black-out and used live ammunition to disperse protests.  Throughout India, right-wing groups are fomenting hysteria about the Muslim birth rate.

Mahatma Gandhi was a racist and a misogynist.

China has another option for retaliating against Trump -- step up oil purchases from Iran.

Are House Democrats going to start an impeachment inquiry, or are they already doing one, or what?  It's confusing.

Texas Republicans are in an embarrassing squabble over a secret recording.

Stop treating Williamson as a joke.

See which demographic groups support which candidates.  Six states have held polls since the second debate, and Biden has a comfortable lead in all six.

"Moderate" and "progressive" Democratic voters aren't really all that different.

The circular firing squads are already forming.  Cut it out and focus on Trump.

Looks to me like another political troll at work.  Always be wary!

The debate changed nothing -- real voters don't care about the stupid zingers and gotcha moments the pundits love.

Trump's re-election strategy makes any new gun laws unlikely.

Democrats who attack Obama are being foolish, perhaps fatally so.

Williamson won't be getting many votes from the disabled.

Shower Cap looks at gun control and Trump's photo op.

More links here.

Lately I've gotten a succession of rude, hectoring, and long comments (you the readers don't see them because of comment moderation), so I'm linking to this post, which may be of some interest to bloggers generally as trolling intensifies with the approach of the election.  And the trolls could save some wasted effort if they'd just read this.

[Image at top:  algae farm at Columbus, New Mexico]