Link round-up for 30 January 2022

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

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More snow, fewer spiders!

A church suffers a burst water pipe.

Here's how warp drive really works.

Let Brooklynn-chan be your fashion and fitness guru.

Esme's Cloud is beset with hordes of followers.

Rely on a social distancing support cat.

People are hot for statues.

These are signs of the times.

Pwned, I think.

It's cold outside.

What is reverse exorcism?

In America's case, there are many options.

I never saw a purple cow, but..... (found via Miss Cellania).

Sometimes we can have nice things.

Keep an eye on this Czech nuclear reactor.  Here's a video.

These ancient Roman coins were kind of different from the coins we have now.

Think globally, act locally.

God got mad at the Tower of Babel, but.....

Chess reflects reality.

See how a snake climbs a tree.

Some interesting optical tricks and physics/chemistry stuff here.

Whitney Avalon riffs on Jurassic Park to create a lively feminist comic song.

A child awakens an ancient god in this satisfying little tale.

Have some flamenco videos and a gripping story of a drunken assault; also, a link to a new anti-child-abuse project.

Here's what the seven wonders of the ancient world looked like.

Cas d'intérêt has a round-up of items from France, including a post office that's far more than a post office.  More pics here from the latter.

This is San Francisco.

This is Mont-Saint-Michel off the coast of Normandy in France.

This is Warsaw in the 1930s, just before the disaster of World War II.

Here's a bizarre and disturbing short film (age-restricted by YouTube, and wisely so).

Grow up, manage your own money, learn reality.

If a claim seems odd, check the sources.

Stay out of this town and places like it.

Capitalism isn't meritocracy.

Anti-veganism is weird, especially from atheists.

The James Webb telescope is now deployed at its final location, almost a million miles from Earth.

Darwinfish 2 remembers Meat Loaf, plus some of the usual political exasperation.

Are you this hypocrite?

Validate their identity!

Rich people are clueless about the middle class.

God will judge.

Tips on quitting addictions here.

Defy censorship!

It doesn't take much to get bombarded with internet hate these days.

Twisting language to fit fads makes it irritating and confusing.

Don't pirate books.  In most cases you're shitting on the poor and the desperate.

See an interview with gay British activist/humorist MrMenno.

Autism complicates the struggle to deal with childhood sexual abuse.

The student bar association board of Emory university doesn't understand what a university is for.

There are grassroots ways to fight back against school library book-banning.

Carl Sagan's wife remembers his dignity in death.

An old labor poem gets updated for the present day.

I guess he no longer believes covid-19 is a "Jewish plot".

Handy woke-to-English translations here.

Green Eagle has another round-up from the lunatic fringe.

The great thinkers of the past will outlive the transient vermin now nipping around their heels.

Corporate executives make too much money and often don't know anything.

Not all atheists are rational.

Singer Remy laments the shittyization of San Francisco, to the tune of Taylor Swift.

Where men are free to be thugs, women are condemned for defending themselves.

"Hybrid" work schedules drag workers back to the office for part of the work week.  Workers find them little to no improvement over being dragged back all week.

We know who is behind political polarization (found via Earth-Bound Misfit).

103 years old, still true.

If women are "birthing people", men are.....

Apparently having grasped the disaster caused by reliance on global supply chains, companies are bringing chip manufacturing back to the US.

Evangelicals indoctrinate their children as much as any other cult.

Some US universities still support free speech.  But not many.

Don't pray on the internet (yeah, people do) -- corporate assholes will monetize even that.

If you use any of these VPN providers, be wary.

The delusion that everything about reality is just a "social construct" has sinister implications.

"The witch is not permitted to have feelings."

A troll who harassed his targets with internet messages gets exposed and faces punishment.  More of this, please.

Biden's first year has seen the strongest economic growth since 1984.

A look back at pre-Roe America foreshadows what the post-Roe future could look like.

Companies claim to be desperate for workers, but many are still mired in hopelessly outdated hiring practices.

"Words are not violence..... Words are instead of violence."

A covid-19 booster shot will benefit you regardless of which vaccine you get.

This is what modern feminism is fighting for.

Humans need far more rest and downtime than our present work-fixated culture allows for.

A Tennessee school district has banned Maus, the classic graphic novel about the Holocaust, supposedly because of "eight curse words".  Or maybe it just makes Nazis uncomfortable?  You know how careful we have to be these days about not offending anybody.

A federal judge in Texas has sided with the bosses and banned BNSF workers from striking against the company's dangerous and degrading attendance policy.

"Critical race theory" really is dangerously crazy -- it's not just about teaching history honestly.

Fake animal rescue videos are a horror (yes, this really happens).

Billionaires crippled and warped the development of the internet.

"Listen to transwomen."

Why is Tucker Carlson siding with Putin?

Democratic voters are losing interest in the 2022 elections, while conservatives are fired up.

Government-issued digital currency would be an enormous threat to freedom (in fact, I think this would just drive much of the economy underground, using something else as a medium of exchange).

Compare progressive views of how politics works with reality.

A woman who wants an abortion doesn't owe anybody an explanation.

Ideology-driven quacks who have mangled tens of thousands of young people are about to be called to account in court.

If Republicans are plotting another coup attempt, time is not on their side -- and they're far from united.

The US and Europe are drastically different in religiosity.

A Canadian couple who tried to protect their daughter are fighting back against defamation.

A teacher is silenced and banned from talking to colleagues on the basis of a law she clearly did not even violate.

Canada's anti-vax trucker protest will be just another super-spreader event.

When questioning official dogma becomes a crime, how can the police arrest everybody fast enough?

The "woke cult" steps into the role of medieval religion, intolerance and all.

This is not how police in a democracy behave.  Nor is this.  Bullshit ass-covering dissected here.  Oh, and this is completely insane.

Europe is within sight of the end of the pandemic.

He Who Zings Rats has admitted making a false statement about his role in the priestly molestation cover-up.

The Catholic Church laments a "devastating" decline in religious belief in once-devout Poland, especially among younger people.

A woman in Poland has died as a direct result of that country's draconian anti-abortion law.

The US is making no concessions to Putin's bullshit about Ukraine.  There may not be a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but that doesn't mean a US-Russia war is inevitable.  Putin has underestimated the West's resolve in standing up to him.

Mexican abortion activists plan to help women in Texas.

Islamist hatred for Israel fits a broader pattern.

Those who have lived under Islamic theocracy understand Islam best.

Call them what they are -- barbarians.

Four of India's eight largest cities are already past their omicron peak.

More links at Fair and Unbalanced, Miss Cellania, and The Honest Courtesan.

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My only post this week was the adventures of stupid people.