Link round-up for 6 September 2020

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

o o o o o

See oddly-placed cats.

Medieval art was fun.

This pigeon won the game.

Debra She Who Seeks seems unenthused about September, but at least it should have happy cats.

Twitterers have fun with sinking Trumpanzees, AKA #Dumbkirk.

I'm coming over.

What really happens to all those socks that disappear in the wash?

Here's a machine Trump might use.

This is Florida.

Cats can be melodramatic.

Signs of the times.

Creepy story ideas.

These masks make a fashion statement.

Today is National Read a Book Day (found via Mendip).

Jim Bakker out-stupids von Däniken.

Make your bike sound like a horse, should you feel so inclined.

It's never too early to shop for Halloween supplies, or get in touch with your inner witch.

Octopus pwns eel (found via Jerry Coyne).

He has the right attitude (but I never even look at the damn things).

This video game's virtual world is full of bizarre anomalies.

What happened to Captain Kirk's mission logs?

Challenge -- find rhymes for these words.

This beetle has a strange and remarkable ability.

Nice clock, but.....

Learn the origin of the "Karen" meme, and more -- see the comments too.

Working for the Postal Service was tough even before DeJoy started shitting it up.

Evangelicals' lack of curiosity fuels their ignorance.

This is what Trump's vaccine will look like.

Here's a radical idea -- increase the US population to one billion.

Get off Facebook.

Don't re-hire this guy.

Seneca was right.

Wingnuts perform occult rituals to help re-elect Trump.

Having been to college doesn't necessarily mean you're smart.

36% of evangelicals now find casual sex acceptable, and every other group is still more tolerant.

Don't romanticize life before modern conveniences.

Losers and suckers!

What does Ivanka have to be proud of?

Religion is in decline because it's not just wrong but also disgusting.

Here's how to survive a police encounter (found via Hackwhackers).

Trevor Noah chronicles the Great Postal War.

Consider a new way to look at government spending.

Traitor or patriot?

Here's another desperate attempt to smear Steven Pinker.

Green Eagle has the latest from around the wingnutosphere.

2020 is already a record-breaking year for gun sales (found via Earth-Bound Misfit).

Hackwhackers has reactions to the Trump "losers" bombshell.  Veteran Pete Buttigieg speaks out.

There's too much at stake to not vote (some useful links there too).

This may be the stupidest book ever written.

It's becoming uneconomical to exploit new sources of oil.

In his later years as a Christian, Bruce Gerencser was aware of the fundie alternate-reality bubble.

Trump's stoking of violence is Weimar-ish (see comments too).  He's no friend of law and order.

No, the CDC did not "admit" that most covid-19 deaths are caused by other things.

Next time, go to a real doctor (except that for this kid there won't be a next time).

Angela Davis speaks out on the election (link from Annie Asks You).

American Christianity has a deeply-racist past -- and present (found via Miss Cellania).  Trumpism is perhaps its final degradation.

The Sturgis bike rally has (so far) led to 260 covid-19 infections and at least one death.

This person exists.

Trump's sabotage of the Postal Service appears to be backfiring.  His attack on Social Security is likely to do so as well (and the business world isn't cooperating).

Support a law to ban animal trophies in California.

QAnon rehashes the "Satanic panic" of the 1980s.  It undermines real efforts to protect children.

Bannon's private-sector border wall is a piece of junk.

The Catholic Church during World War II engaged in child-stealing.

A body language expert assesses the speakers at both conventions.

Why would contraception be an issue for lesbians?

Trump really did build an impenetrable wall.

Repent of your support of the Democrats or face the fires of Hell!

The media need to stop normalizing Trumpism -- and stop normalizing Trump's mental aberrations.  He may not be another Hitler, but the parallels are disquieting.

Smile when you call for violence.

Covid-19 is thinning out Trump's Secret Service protection.  He's also forcing them to waste money.

"Liberty" "University" is reeling from the Falwell sex revelations.

We have a serious double standard about who can shoot whom.

Trump's popularity is falling within the military (and this was before the "losers" story hit) -- so stop worrying about military support for a coup if he loses the election.

Even small gatherings help spread covid-19.

See how much of each European country is forest.

Women in the UK wage a legal fight against a rising tide of madness.

Black American soldiers stationed in Britain during World War II found it rather different from home.

Government re-defining words for ideological reasons is exactly what Orwell warned us about.

Like working at home, abortion at home may become a permanent reality in the UK, much to the fury of religious busybodies.

Being "inclusive" isn't always a good thing.

Furious about the Navalny poisoning, Germany threatens to get tough on Russia.

President Macron of France defends freedom of expression.

The drive for democracy in Belarus is women-led and defiant of tradition.

Russian election hacking has its farcical side.

A historic flight takes place in the Middle East.

India is on track to overtake the US in total covid-19 infections (but remember it has four times our population).

Facebook in India twists its own rules to support the ruling religio-nationalist party.

Gender-selective abortion is substantially reducing India's female population.

Survivors report on life in China's concentration camps.

Chinese-ruled Inner Mongolia erupts in protest as the regime ends Mongolian-language education.

This election may be our last chance to save democracy.  Read this too (scroll down).

The Republican convention was an alternate reality, unwatchable but revealing.

Hillary would have been different.

Biden speaks out forcefully on violence.

Annie Asks You reposts one of my earlier pieces on the election, now more topical than ever.

On election night, no matter what the eventual result, Trump will seem to be winning at first.  Here's how things could play out.  It should work out OK if the media do their jobs.

"In every scenario but a massive Biden blowout, things went south."

Sanders is all-in for Biden.

More links here.