Link round-up for 24 July 2022

Various interesting stuff I ran across on the net over the last week.  I'm posting it early this weekend because I won't be able to do it later.

o o o o o

Dogs just being dogs here.

All around you, they are watching.

Marine humor here.

Nazis pwned!

Awesome typo.

This photo turned out better than expected.

It's a timely warning for the coming hot weather.

One ring to stalk them all, one ring to spy them.....

Not a book worth reading.

Where's Waldo?

Start your Halloween preparations early.

I would hate this kind of house.  You and everything inside are highly visible from all directions and the entire surface area is defenseless, unless that's bulletproof glass.  Also, can somebody please tell modern architects that forms other than stark right angles do exist.

Here are five scenes deleted from popular movies (found via Miss Cellania).

Bullies come in many types.

"Hero" is an over-used term, but it fits him.

Be realistic about relationships, be happy.

This is a library in Manchester.

Remember the Golden Record.

See video from Mars with sound.

A treasure trove of Cambrian-Ordovician transitional fossils has been discovered in China.

Sorry, facts trump beliefs.

If souls existed, they would provoke some curious questions.

The physical size of a thing does not determine its importance.

You are not a passenger in your body.

Religio-dumbass self-pwns.

Blogger Bruce Gerencser, who already suffers from several painful and debilitating conditions, has contracted covid.  He is getting treatment and I can only wish him a fast recovery.

The Library of Congress has a turbulent history, but its current head has exactly the right background for the job.

Reminder to Americans:  the other 96% of the world does, in fact, exist.

Besides being an asshole, Elon Musk is a nutcase.

This update on the "scold's bridle" is a powerful piece of art.

A culture of censorship and harassment is killing online fandom.

Which religion has the best stories?

Some insights here on Lafayette, the French hero of US independence.

This is how disinformation works.

If your holy book tells you.....

Doctors are ethical in most cases.

Oops.

If your religion forbids you to do a normal part of your job, you need to get a different job.  And what about when an employee with "sincerely held" racist beliefs refuses to serve a black or Jewish customer?

Some good quotes from Ann Richards here.

Stores where you buy pregnancy tests may be selling the data, putting you at risk if you're in a forced-birth state.

The American system has utterly failed the working poor.

This is what pornified sexuality looks like.

The tough don't brag, and braggarts aren't tough.

The heat wave in Texas has actually done some good.

The market exists for people, not people for the market.

Toxic masculinity destroys human contact.

Here's the truth behind "no one wants to work any more".

Bannon turned out to be all bark and no bite.

Some ideologies that promote hate aren't religious.  They too must be called out for what they are.

What's behind the bizarre mental fragility of younger Americans?

Here's yet another example of how the MSM bungle their reporting about science.

Twenty-first-century citizenship requires more than just voting.

Religious activism is pushing the US backward toward pre-modern vulnerability to new diseases.

The disastrous fall in the birth rate is partly due to economics.

It shows how bad things are that you can hardly tell whether this story is a parody or not.  Discussion here.

This story of disabled youth during a fire drill is horrifying.

What service do landlords provide?

High-school brats in West Virginia are putting Confederate flags on their trucks.  They should read up on how West Virginia became a state in the first place.

This bill would do a lot to prevent future Trump-like efforts to overturn an election.

Creationists make pitiful efforts to twist science to fit the Bible.

Darwinfish 2 catches up with some political miscellania.

The Great Resignation is still going strong, with 40% of US workers considering quitting soon.

When all seemed lost, she turned to the one person she could count on.

By choosing an extremist candidate over a moderate, Republicans have probably lost their hold on the governorship of Maryland.

Dr Caitlin Bernard (the doctor in the Ohio ten-year-old's case) will sue the Indiana AG for defamation.  She's a true fighter and deserves our support.

Right-wing lies and insinuations about the case are despicable.

Here's what a full-term pregnancy and birth would really mean for a ten-year-old.

Yet another would-be mass shooter is stopped by a good guy with a gun.  Anybody who claims this doesn't happen, doesn't know what he's talking about.  Thank goodness it didn't happen in New York state.

The Idaho Republican platform now opposes a "life of the mother" exception to the state's forced-birth law.

A top economist argues that, no, we are not heading for a recession.

Kansas is about to hold a deceptively-worded referendum on abortion rights.

Biden pwns Trump by actually getting Mexico to pay for better border security.

Less than a month after the end of Roe, the horrors are coming thick and fast (found via Miss Cellania).

Wingnuts watch January 6 hearings, react wingnuttishly.

"Grooming" is not a slur when it's the truth.

People are circulating lies about Biden's pro-union record.  Be aware.

No, abolishing the Electoral College would not mean that "just a few states would pick the president".

While Democrats have been losing women and Hispanic voters, Republicans are losing a lot of their support among older voters -- a drop of 15% in just two months.

New Jersey puts yet another male sex criminal in a women's prison (considering what this guy did, I don't see why he's in a prison instead of a cemetery).

Many US churches are fusing religion with militant right-wing politics, driving moderates away.

The Catholic Church's growing influence over US healthcare is doing real harm to women.

The Fed is fighting against workers, not against inflation.

This girl is a victim of abuse and those responsible need to be held accountable.

Forced-birth laws are pushing US healthcare back into the Dark Ages.

The Bracken county KY Republican party shared a neo-Nazi post on its Facebook page.

Differences between the US and British right wing have implications for feminism (from 2020, but still just as true now).

Here's a pub where you could actually relax and enjoy being there.

It's highly dishonest to change a document after others have signed it.

Australians are getting tired of the bullshit.  This one actually got fixed.

Extreme heat is bringing raging fires across Europe.

Europeans can pwn Putin with do-it-yourself solar power.

If you don't know what the Holodomor was, here's a one-minute video introduction.

Ukrainian forces are now apparently pushing the Russians back in the Kherson area, but details are hard to come by.

Mercenaries fighting for Putin in Ukraine have suffered such losses that they've had to lower their recruiting standards.

Putin is assembling a coalition of the despicable.

More links at Fair and Unbalanced and Miss Cellania.

My own posts this week:  our not-so-immoral times, and why religion naturally tends toward self-delusion and authoritarian politics.

o o o o o

If every corporate executive in the country went on strike for a month, and every garbage collector in the country went on strike for a month, which absence would cause more actual problems?

Hating things that are popular doesn't make a person sophisticated.

The English language has a rather unusual distinction: it's the only language which has ever been spoken on the Moon.

Every belief which we define as "religion" when a million people hold it, would be described as "insanity" if only one person held it.

The enemy can ban whatever they want to, but they can't see inside your head.