04 July 2021

Link round-up for Independence Day 2021

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

o o o o o

Forge your sword with the blood of your enemies.

Receive your books in the appropriate way.

Excitement awaits when you ride the bus.

Even Americans have no business being this ignorant.

Speeding is bad.

People have been passing time in lockdown re-creating works of art.

Everywhere, there are faces.

Excellent prospects for this marriage working out well.

Calvin observes Canada Day.

He was just adopted, now has his own bedroom and internet.

Witchcraft complicates masturbation.

Best evil rug ever.

The cicadas are mostly gone -- this dog ate a lot of them.

No one can figure out what the barmaid is trying to say.

Should you really treat the janitor and the CEO alike?

Three wise dogs from the East beheld a star.....

Yikes, Sun Tzu was really ruthless.

No confession necessary.

Why are you gay?

"Adopt a street" sounds cool, but.....

Shield your pets from the fireworks noise.

I guess atheists just aren't capable of real belief.

You need glasses to watch the news.

Giant horrid flying things once roamed the skies.

The cat is not wasting time.

SickoRicko has reposted my essay "The works of God", with plenty of telling religion images added.  More religion stuff here.

The first AutisticAF Out Loud podcast is up -- making the best of living in a world where you'll never completely fit in.

Different people aspire to different things.

It's billionaires in space!

A herd of sheep viewed from above in timelapse looks like some weird shape-shifting super-organism.

A trip to Canada runs into some mysterious bureaucratic obstacles.  Do watch the video at the end -- great pictures.

One of America's rock icons turned 76 this week.

Kansas City has a cool-looking library.

Ursula K LeGuin makes an important point about art.

Never give up on doing fun things.

The "Americana aesthetic" is a thing -- in Japan.

This prediction will come true today.

The stages of life are worse than you think.

No need to worry about this dog.

To protect your teenagers, consider the X-plan.

Voenix Rising has a huge collection of photos from San Francisco pride parades of the eighties and nineties.

Here are some common misconceptions about structural engineering.

"Why is nobody talking about....."

He helped a young man beat a stupid rule.

Don't believe everything you hear about masks and germs.  Masks brought huge benefits during the pandemic.

Be cautious about interpreting photographs (note: disturbing image).

"Give Britney a gun."

Our country has a drinking problem.

Misogyny is older than the Bible.  Because the Bible isn't as old as you think.

Show science more appreciation.

Too privileged?  Get your oppression points here.

Fragile ego -- handle with care (note: this blogger refers to mainland China as "West Taiwan").

Physicists are not welcome in Las Vegas.

Teenagers aren't addicted to the internet -- modern society just makes it impossible for them to socialize any other way.

So pro-life!

We must militantly ignore those why try to distort language.

GETTR is already a flop (should be called GUTTR).

We need government because people are stupid.

Sleep deprivation is a growing problem among poorer Americans (found via Voenix Rising (NSFW)).

"Even a cockroach has a face."

Priorities, priorities (found via Hackwhackers).

For fighting cancer, how do exercise or caloric restriction compare with veganism?

Personal experience is not the only, or sometimes even the best, source of expertise.

Claims of a "racial wealth gap" don't accurately describe the reality of inequality in the US (found via SickoRicko).

Vaccinated people are mostly safe from the covid-19 delta variant, but unvaccinated people are being hammered and it's going to get worse.

Moline Skeptics looks at some UFO myths.

Even kids are learning how to push back against premature in-person school re-openings.

Make up your damn mind about the statues.

Add the Amish to the list of religious crazies endangering themselves and others by rejecting vaccines.

It's being called "the great resignation" -- 70% of corporate executives plan to drag workers back to the office by Fall, and 95% of workers are considering switching jobs.  Who cares what people are doing as long as the work gets done?

Murr Brewster laments the recent Pacific Northwest heat wave.  She has some tips for dealing with heat.

This book review sounds much better than the book.  Just the quote at the beginning tells me the author is a flake.

Even in 1912, they knew global warming was coming, and why.

Workers have a right to avoid abuse.

The dogma of Hell illustrates the moral depravity of Christianity (if you think it's not really that bad, read the e-mail at the end).

For telling the truth on Twitter, you get banned.

It's not really mysterious why anti-Semitism is getting worse.

Aid groups are preparing for a future where women will need to cross state lines to get abortions.

Bernardo Bertolucci arranged an actual rape to incorporate into his film Last Tango in Paris.

Basics here on political realism and the Democratic establishment.

Alberta (like Oregon) is rushing to re-open, making a new covid-19 wave almost inevitable.

The European Union has lifted its ban on feeding material from animal corpses to farm animals.  This is how mad cow disease got started.

In a recent British court ruling which upheld putting male criminals in women's prisons, the judge recognized the risk to women inmates, but basically didn't give a shit.

Mexico may finally be ready to legalize marijuana, but powerful forces still oppose the move.

It's tough being a rock singer in a fascist state.  Imprisonment and routine harassment come with the territory.

Here's how China is exploiting the Uyghurs for forced labor, including a list of 82 major companies which are profiting from this abuse.

Covid-19 is surging in Russia, Indonesia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

We're already tracking (we think) all asteroids big enough to cause mass extinctions if they hit Earth, but there are smaller but still dangerous ones left to find.

Plants have interesting symbiotic relationships, whether evolved or arranged by humans.

More links at Fair and Unbalanced.

o o o o o

In case you missed it -- this week I posted about class struggle from below and my departure from the realm of politics.

8 Comments:

Blogger Jack said...

I will be interested to see how the plan to minimize politics goes. I have found it almost impossible to maintain that strategy for more than a few weeks at a time because I don't know how to separate many of the things I want to write about (e.g., separation of church and state, Christian privilege) from politics. Even when I'm making an effort to avoid politics, I seem to find my way back. If you find a successful strategy, I hope you will share it!

04 July, 2021 03:51  
Anonymous Johnny Profane said...

Nice, Infidel753. Thank you.

Working on one this week I think your folks will dig ..

Returning to the violent interface of cops, politics, and autists...

Like all outsiders... A lotta autists are human-rights, socialism, or civil liberties focused...

Oh... And agnostic... Or worser...

Lol

I love your mind. And share it widely.

Thank you for Being.

04 July, 2021 04:27  
Blogger SickoRicko said...

So. Much. Material. But the high-speed motorcycles remind me of a few GIFs I have of car accidents in which there had to be fatalities. I hesitate to post them.

04 July, 2021 09:37  
Blogger Mary Kirkland said...

Cockroaches might have faces but I don't want to see it. lol
That bus ad was hilarious. I want that guy who was narrating to read me an audiobook now.
That cats new room is awesome.
Deeply evil carpet. I love that carpet.
Go to Las Vegas and keep your money. I agree. I haven't gambled in years.

04 July, 2021 12:17  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Jack: It's true that a lot of the social/cultural issues I cover tend to shade into politics. But it's the political side of those issues -- the hypocrisy and evasion and refusal to confront reality in the political internet -- that turns me off. And stuff like the blow-by-blow minutiae of the progress of individual pieces of legislation, for example, is purely politics, and I really find it rather tedious. All that matters is the ultimate outcome.

Johnny: Thanks very much for the kind words. I'll look forward to seeing what else you come up with.

Ricko: That speed video was a bit tasteless, I suppose, in that it's very likely the riders were at least badly injured, maybe killed. But it's of value to remind people that behavior has consequences.

Mary K: Fear not, there are no actual cockroaches at that link.

I love that bus ad. Utterly shameless self-promotion.

That cat has better accommodation than a lot of humans around Portland, that's for sure.

04 July, 2021 14:01  
Anonymous nonnie9999 said...

Hi Infidel,

Late to the party again.

I want to go to Denmark just to ride the bus. Greyhound needs to fire their ad agency ASAP.

The art recreations never get old. (Is that pasta for hair? The 5th one down, not Girl with a Pearl Earring done in food.)

I don't understand crunchy peanut butter and a hippo, but it's reassuring to know that Canadians are lousy at grammar, too.

New meaning to cathouse.

I would probably trip over that rug, even if it wasn't so evil.

Is Sun Tzu cancelled now?

One joke can be rewritten: Cop to criminal: "No confession necessary. There's plenty enough to convict you at your rallies and from your sons' TV interviews."

Maybe when the billionaires go to space, Louie the Genius Gohmert can find a way to change Earth's orbit so they can't find their way back?

05 July, 2021 02:04  
Blogger Martha said...

Great round-up! I laughed at some, shook my head at others. As for Alberta and its rush to open up, we're watching it from here in Ontario to see if it turns into a cautionary tale. I hope not because I have friends there. We will see.

05 July, 2021 07:14  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Nonnie: I wonder if the Danish subways and taxis are equally thrilling.

Pretty sure that's pasta. Nobody does actual hair like that any more.

The way things are going, I think they'll eventually cancel everything in the universe, so Sun Tzu would be included.

Frankly I'm impressed that Gohmert even knew the Earth is in orbit. He seems like the type to believe it's flat and the center of the universe.

Martha: We'll all have to wait and see -- hopefully Canada at least has a higher proportion of vaccinated people than we do.

06 July, 2021 03:35  

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