Link round-up for 4 September 2022

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

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A startling new photo of Jupiter raises questions.

This is not the intended purpose of a ferris wheel.

This is not the right way to use a skateboard.

Forbidden love blossoms in the Australian outback.

Respect the power of car air bags.

Who can resist these smiling faces?

Don't overreact to a text message.

Cats are often in the wrong place.

These mice are not politically correct.

The big-government nanny-staters need to stop coddling zoo visitors (found via Miss Cellania).

If you see a loose wheel rolling free on the road, don't drive over it.

Here's one way to cope with a loud person gabbling on a cell phone in public.

Don't let them get away!

Bad idea, sorry.  People don't go on vacation to stay at a hotel, they go to see and do things, and the hotel is just a convenient place nearby to stay at.  A hotel which isn't near anything serves no purpose.

Here are five tips for avoiding Supergirl syndrome (actually, many people could use these).

It can take a very long time for a person suffering from dissociation to understand it.

When you park your baby stroller, lock the wheels.

Where is the neighbor's arm?

If boys are underperforming in schools, maybe it's partly because their role models are crap (read the first 7-8 comments too).

Beavers and their dams bring a variety of benefits to nearby areas.

Practice what you preach.

See an authentic 1956 house.

Gif images contrast once-thriving places and their present abandoned condition.  It is striking how, in most cases, so much plant life has encroached in just a few decades.  Nature is resilient, not fragile -- so resilient, in fact, that it quickly takes over as soon as we're not actively keeping it in check.

The best remedy for misinformation is more freedom of speech, not less.

No one wants to sell cars any more.

Tips here on leaving the Mormon Church.

Sex distinctions have been recognized and expressed throughout all of history.

Even in death, this woman was feared.

One method of teaching reading is proven effective -- so the schools are trying to get rid of it.

Be grateful you'll never encounter the half-ton demon ducks of doom.

Due to the size of the modern human population, there is now more neanderthal DNA in existence than there was when neanderthals were alive.

Spanish scientists have identified the genes that make certain jellyfish immortal (found via Mendip).  It's dubious how applicable this will be to humans, though.

Here's how QR codes work, and why they can be dangerous.

The American view of Gorbachev is not the most relevant one.

A one-day strike was enough to get management at this company to back off from intrusive surveillance of workers.

Clean-up and conservation efforts in the waters off New York City have been so successful that local fish and marine mammal populations are booming like never before in generations.

Disgusting and scary.  Get this guy out of circulation.

People in thrall to ideology are morally defective.

Stop buying "smart" devices for your home.  They are genuinely dangerous.

Ted Cruz is a jackass.

New world or old, religion is horror.

Some wingnut put together this image in response to Biden's speech.  You have to admire the sheer over-the-top-ness of it, if nothing else.

One strong woman supports another.

Don't blame all Muslims for the attack on Rushdie; blame the cowards who fail to robustly defend free speech when it comes to criticizing religion.

Americans' approval of labor unions is at its highest point since 1965.  Unions are scoring wins in surprising places.

What does a "relationship with God" amount to?

This may be the most absurd book-banning of them all (found via Fair and Unbalanced).

Congress is considering a law to protect internet privacy -- and tech companies are fighting like hell to sabotage it.

Junk ideology is attacking science again.

Here's an example of how police, and probably others, can use your "smartphone" to track you.

If your religion prohibits you from doing a job, don't apply for the job in the first place.

San Francisco small businesses are threatening to withhold taxes over the city government's abject failure to deal with the homeless problem.

The wingnutosphere is still full of lunacy, including about the Merde-a-Logo raid.

"This is what pure evil looks like."

Don't fall for the bosses' divide-and-conquer tactics against unions.

Amazon's tentacles extend into nearly every industry in the US (and probably elsewhere) to spy on you.

If you're on Medicare, beware this scheme to privatize your benefits.

A flagrant Christian falsehood:  this article claims that a proposed California law against gay "conversion therapy" would ban "preaching God's word".  Even some of their own commenters called them out on this one.

Darwinfish 2 assesses a suspicious local term-limits plan, and the wingnuts' whining about student loan forgiveness.

Last Sunday violent armed mobs seized control of several entire streets in my city.  Police did nothing because they were too busy responding to shootings and other violence elsewhere.

The water crisis in Jackson MI was decades in the making.

In California, utility companies are pressuring regulators to kill off rooftop solar panels.

Not this "senior", asshole.  Stop trying to fuck with our Social Security and just leave us alone.

New Yorkers are rushing to apply for gun-carry permits before new restrictions take effect.

Jackass politician flies into a medieval-style rage at the media for telling the truth about him.

Voter support for abortion rights has risen substantially since the end of Roe.  So has voting enthusiasm among Democrats.

This gay man saw the rise of the new homophobia up close.

Republicans are using technicalities to sabotage the ballot initiative process.

Inflation is starting to "drop like a rock"; we're even seeing deflation in some areas.

In Detroit, an armed bystander stopped a mass shooting, saving at least one life.

Church attendance among Republicans is falling as rapidly as among Democrats -- just from a higher starting point.

Mortality rates in Massachusetts are nearly back down to pre-covid normal, reflecting the state's high vaccination rate (found via Angry Bear).  Here in Oregon, too, covid hospitalizations are declining steadily.

Republican candidates are fleeing from their own hard-line forced-birthism.

This YMCA has become a haven for misogynistic bullying -- and kicks out anybody who objects.

Oregon's biggest wind farm suffers from oil leaks and mechanical problems, including one case where an eight-ton blade from one wind turbine flew loose and landed in a nearby field.  Other wind farms with the same equipment show no such problems, suggesting that bad maintenance is the issue.

Saving the Democrats' House majority now looks difficult, but no longer impossible.  Republicans may well lose a few seats in California.

What is liberalism?

This year my state elects a new governor.  Right now I'm liking the main independent candidate, Betsy Johnson, better than the Democrat or the Republican.  She rejects the crazy extremes, which is what I'm looking for; neither a gun-grabber nor a global-warming denialist, she firmly supports abortion rights and gay rights and a tough approach to the out-of-control street violence here in Portland.  She prioritizes affordable housing, and seems eager to shove ideology aside for the sake of practical results.  The polling I've seen shows her behind the two big-party candidates, but not by much.  Decisions, decisions.

Roughly a third of Americans reject both major parties.  Whichever party can truly address their concerns will have a lot to gain.

Never, ever apologize for this.

Orwellian:  lesbians are no longer welcome at gay pride.

The Anglican Church in Australia is splitting over whether to uphold the Biblically-mandated hostility to homosexuality.  It's not true that this is only a modern issue, though; when Christianity first became dominant in the Roman Empire, it launched murderous persecutions of homosexuals in a society where they had previously been accepted.

Germany is ahead of schedule in weaning itself off Russian natural gas.

Christian archbishop shoots his mouth off about rape, cringe ensues.

For Ukraine, victory means liberating occupied land -- including Crimea (found via Reaganite Independent).

Russians will never care about Ukraine as much as Ukrainians do.

One year ago, El Salvador made bitcoin an official currency.  Today the experiment is a disaster, with fraud rampant, default looming, and the government degenerating into thuggish authoritarianism.

Pakistan is suffering catastrophic flooding, with over a thousand killed and vast areas of farmland inundated.

Japan is considering mass deployment of long-range missiles to deter Chinese aggression.  It does not have nuclear warheads for them, but could easily produce about five thousand if it chose -- a nuclear arsenal which would be twenty times the size of China's.

China is two and a half months into a devastating heat wave and drought (found via Hackwhackers).

A week ago, two US warships sailed through the international waters between fascist China and the island nation of Taiwan.  The Beijing regime bitched up a storm but took no real action.  Bullies back down when confronted firmly.

More links at Fair and Unbalanced, Angry Bear, and Miss Cellania.

My own posts this week:  an image round-up and a look at Amazon's The Rings of Power.

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My Social Security application was approved!  I won't actually start getting payments for a few more months, though.