04 December 2022

Link round-up for 4 December 2022

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

o o o o o

Even Christmas is better with dinosaurs.

Philosophers go on strike.

Face time!

Here's a map of the US made by a truck driver who has been all over it.

Help me, I'm stuck.

From 1979, a modern-sounding "struggle against reality".

Few people will ever be as happy as these dogs.

Turn a cup into a decoration.

Most ecumenical religious display ever.

An underpaid teacher finds a more lucrative career.

We were promised plastic flying saucers and space stations with balconies.  Frankly I'm glad we got the internet and mRNA vaccines instead.

What if a superhero became a cat?

Make a splash, but not an ordinary one.

Christmas has a convoluted history.

This couple put a lot of work into their home.

Here are a few Creepmas ornaments and where to get them.

Whatever -- it's still a chunk of a corpse.

These are horses in Iceland.

See a hero dog in action.

Mom plays with kids.

Stop eating bugs that were fed on pig shit.

This man knows trash when he sees it.

Here's how they did special effects in the old days.

See a waterfall in an icy wasteland.

Icelanders gather to watch glowing lava.

This is England in 1899.  How formally Victorians dressed even for an amusement-park ride!

The Great Lakes are really seas.

Not a book in sight.  My own bedside table is never without one.


Great revenge anthem here.

For translation, even of a short formal text, human knowledge provides insights that machine translation can't duplicate.

Think rationally about nuclear energy.

Obama pwns Walker (found via Hackwhackers).

This death was a suicide.

Yeah, we killed your son, but you get these nice decorative towels.

Another Portland small business closes due to the crime wave.

These men chased a dream that can never become reality.

Here are forty useful concepts -- well worth reading in full.

Take a serious look at the traditional Christmas story.

A judge has blocked Indiana's forced-birth law, based on a lawsuit by non-Christian women.

Here's why many corporations don't support universal health coverage.

A lawyer comes after Elon Musk (found via Miss Cellania).  For a more readable image of the letter, see page 1, page 2, end of page 2.

As president, Trump apparently used the IRS to harass his personal enemies -- a felony.

Will you obey the Bible?

Even knowledgeable people can be deceived.

One of my state's senators is trying to tackle the root causes of soaring housing costs.

Besides being a bigot and a moron, Kanye "Ye" West is a complete ignoramus.


There's a fake documentary out trying to convince people that covid vaccines are deadly.  More here.

Annie Asks You isn't ready to leave Twitter.

Based on what their own Bible says, most right-wing evangelicals won't get into Heaven.

Reminder:  Wall Street is not the real economy.

Every time some nitwit on the internet argues that this is acceptable, another thousand voters switch to the Republicans.

Cryptocurrency isn't even secure from hackers.

Smarter companies are saving money by cutting back on office space, not by layoffs.  Work-from-home is here to stay.

It's not "pro-life", it's forced-birth.

During the lame-duck session, Democrats need to do these four things.

Killer robots will roam the streets of San Francisco.

Railway workers are furious about Congress's betrayal on paid sick leave.  A union official provides some background on railway working conditions.  Biden says he wants to fight for the sick leave -- so issue a goddamn executive order and get it done.  Until he does, he's nothing but a strike-breaker.

Must-read of the weekThe outrage about this is not going to go away.

Some doctors are discriminating against people with disabilities.

Here's one way to get Congress to care about privacy.

There's no evidence that pandering to "trans" delusions helps prevent suicide.

Twitter is now failing to send payroll direct deposits for employees in some countries.

The experience of Cochise county in Arizona shows that subverting an election is damn near impossible.  And there are reasons not to worry about the swing states in 2024.  Those who attempt subversion may face consequences.

Large-scale shoplifting is rampant in Portland.  Multnomah county (which includes Portland) is dropping charges against three hundred people charged with serious crimes because there aren't enough public defenders available.  No wonder so many businesses are leaving.  I sometimes wonder why we even bother having laws in this state.  Just let criminals rob and brutalize working people as much as they want.

Concession by a losing candidate doesn't really matter.  Neither does Hunter Biden's laptop.

The Billion Soul church movement is ready to pester and annoy people in the poorer countries of the world.

A local gun-rights group is taking legal action to stop Oregon's harsh new gun law.


If Trump can't rule over the Republican party, he will try to destroy it -- that's his nature.

At least eighteen Republican House members are from Democratic-leaning districts.  They'll have an incentive to not go along with the crazy stuff.

Critical race theory..... is racist.

60% of US counties are "sanctuary counties" which refuse to enforce state and federal gun restrictions.  Now a Democratic senator is talking about cutting off federal policing funds to those counties (found via Hackwhackers).  I can hardly imagine anything that would be more effective at ensuring a red tsunami of turnout among rural voters in every election for the next ten years.

This company fired thousands of employees by text message and took away their COBRA benefits.

A stable global free economic system needs a hegemonic power.  The US is asserting that role by bringing China to heel.

Canada's policy on male inmates in women's prisons is based on false ideas.

Less than half the population of England and Wales now identifies as Christian.  Most of the rest claim no faith.  But the one true religion is rapidly gaining adherents.

Irish feminists push back against trans ideology's attacks on women's rights.

Drivers in France do not tolerate being harassed by self-righteous assholes.

Ukraine was foolish to give up its nuclear weapons after the fall of the USSR -- but with enough time it could reverse that error.

These Russians exist (found via Hackwhackers).  But only 25% of the Russian people now favor continuing the Ukraine war (found via Reaganite Independent).

A recent minor accident raises new questions about Putin's health.

Russian settlers are fleeing occupied Crimea, fearing Ukraine will soon liberate it.

Since the Putin regime is explicitly Christianist, Zelensky must be the Antichrist (found via Hackwhackers).

The Russian army is in a horrible mess.

Don't try to appease Putin.

Russian and Saudi efforts to use oil as an economic weapon against the democracies are failing.

The Iranian theocracy threatened the families of its soccer players to deter them from protesting in Qatar, and destroyed a house owned by a woman athlete who eschewed the headscarf.  The Qatar authorities are helping the theocracy to silence dissidents.

More here on the mass-scale sexual abuse of detainees in Iran (I posted on this issue here).

The theocracy's atrocities are destroying Iran's influence elsewhere in the Middle East.

Islam is not a culture -- it's a mental parasite.

Around the world, the tide is turning against the gangster-regimes.

Women have played a prominent role in the Chinese rebellion.

Here's how the Chinese regime is censoring World Cup broadcasts.

China faces economic stagnation.

The regime in Vietnam fears that the rebellion in its giant neighbor may inspire its own subjects to rise up.

Indonesia is about to criminalize non-marital sex.  The law applies to foreigners, so unmarried couples from civilized countries who visit Indonesia as tourists could be arrested.  An existing law against black magic will remain in place.

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

My own posts this week:  a video about the uprising in China, why the Democrats shouldn't be complacent about the election results, the rail union fight, the Senate's scandalous failure to do the bare minimum for workers, and the nightmare of life in China.

o o o o o

Issue the executive order, Biden!

11 Comments:

Anonymous NickM said...

I don't think Ukraine was foolish to give up nukes. The Minsk Agreements looked solid as a rock at the time. Weren't they signed by all the permanent members? What has happened is Russia under Putin has acted dispicably and in utter bad faith. Putin simply cannot be trusted and Russians will pay for that for a generation.

Kanye West has been on my list of epic twats for some time. I think calling his son "North" sealed that deal. Yup, "North West" is now a person and not just a compass direction.

04 December, 2022 02:46  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

In such cases, the foolishness or wisdom of a decision can be judged only in hindsight. In view of current events, I think it's indisputable that Ukraine's renunciation of nuclear weapons was a mistake, regardless of how things appeared at the time. Ukraine with a nuclear deterrent would not have been invaded by Russia in 2014 or 2022, given its obvious ability to retaliate. If it had been shunned by the West for nuclear proliferation, that would have been a small price to pay for avoiding the current disaster -- and in any case such shunning is usually short-lived, as the examples of India, Pakistan, Israel, etc show.

04 December, 2022 03:14  
Blogger Trin Carl said...

I love that you list so many news events. It makes me think I should read more news. And the Kanye west ordeal wow! It baffles me if his intended purpose is to lose more money.@theglobaldig.blogspot.com

04 December, 2022 07:28  
Anonymous NickM said...

Well, India and Pakistan... Other folk weren't that fussed because it was very clear exactly who they were aiming at. This has somewhat changed, maybe. As to Israel... Israeli nukes essentially meant the end of Arab states beligenrence towards the Jewish state which even whilst a lot of people don't openly acknowledge that as a good thing a lot of people privately think this is a genuinely good thing. I mean Israelis, Arabs (a lot of whom on the QT probably welcome the excuse not to get yet another mauling at the hands of the IDF), and assorted neighbouring states and all sorts of others with not so much even a dog in the fight but who just don't want the fight. It is interesting that over the last few years the odds of a big Middle-East fight have completely shifted from having anything to do with Israel. It looks vastly more like Iran/Saudi if it comes to serious, organised fisticuffs in the ME. Anyway, what about Japan? Nobody talks about Japanese nukes because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Does anyone seriously believe Japan doesn't have nuclear weapons? I somehow suspect Taiwan does as well. I mean two rich, ultra techie states with a couple of very unpleasant neighbours...

04 December, 2022 08:22  
Blogger SickoRicko said...

Dogs are such happy creatures, we humans need to be more like that. The cup decorator is very, very talented. The splashes were beautiful. I loved the bird nest builders. The Icelandic horses are very beautiful. Husky and pups was endearing. The pre-CGI effects was fascinating. That Merkley bill bullseyes the problem. And, thanks for the shout-out.

04 December, 2022 11:49  
Blogger Daal said...

I'm on twitter just cuz -- but am totally mystified by why it's so popular...

04 December, 2022 15:18  
Blogger Mary Kirkland said...

Dogs can have fun with just about anything. My saying for Falcor is Everything is a toy. Because it is...at least to him.

Ha! I like my steak well done. I went to a sushi place with my brothers one time and didn't get sushi because eww, but I did get stead and fried rice. When I asked for my steak to be well done, he tried to talk me out of it as we watched him make it. lol It was funny.

04 December, 2022 19:12  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Trin: I'd hate to think anyone was relying on my blog to keep up with the news, but I do try to call attention to some items I think may get overlooked.

NickM: Whatever -- my point is, if Ukraine had had nuclear weapons for thirty years, the world would have come to accept it in the same way.

No, I don't believe Japan and Taiwan secretly have nuclear weapons (though both of those countries should build them). The whole purpose of nuclear weapons is deterrence -- making your enemy afraid to attack you. They don't work for deterrence if your enemy doesn't know you have them.

Ricko: Dogs are very appealing to humans. I guess they evolved that way. And the birds seem quite talented. It's hard to believe it's purely instinct.

Pre-computer special effects can be very ingenious. They did a lot with what they had.

Daal: I've never seen much point in it myself.

Mary K: Dogs seem to be like that. Like humans, they evolved to retain childlike traits into adulthood. Humans would probably be more like that if we didn't have so many things to worry about.

04 December, 2022 20:45  
Anonymous Reaganite Independent said...

WHAT IF a superhero became a cat? Julie Newmar will always be my hero! This woman sparked my interest in females at about the age of 10, ha

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ADIDxarQZGzFaDE_lENokZ_OQ5R_trSZwysizugWrkJX8CeHPRXLypjnetYequF-sZkucDUyHoizMDSnRgyHi2wHsKQPY_Of4Hr59gqDuKsk5FmnMwFaw_AyD4xi4jtXKhtlZeepRzUTxpc8wzuVZ3j6VpAtqqvh7-QdeDkTWHSQfbsOjXBwRfov/s400/22848AD2-658D-4B49-9B87-43660BF8E42A.jpeg

05 December, 2022 11:46  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Can't blame you there.....

06 December, 2022 04:12  
Blogger Martha said...

Your round-ups are always fun and interesting! I'm finally catching up with your posts.

11 December, 2022 16:48  

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