Link round-up for 12 March 2023

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

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See the adventures of dinosaurs.

Karma strikes quickly.

It's for the birds.

Use caution when trying to be profound in a foreign language.

This dog is a drama queen.

The guilty will face justice.

I'd hate to see what failure would look like.

An astronaut asks for help.

Birds just can't seem to figure out windows.

Take a tour of a "dictator chic" house.

Dogs really love to chase a car.

This "keyboard" exists.

She's getting mixed messages.

Train your neighbors not to fight.

There's a substitute for vaccines, but no cure for stupidity.

Learn from The Mud Maid.

They stole a coin -- yes, just one coin (found via Miss Cellania).

If nutty stuff were true, the world would be very different.

This isn't really movie-making any more.

Humans are messy by nature.

Do not underestimate the pig.

Consider the forests of Bhutan; they toil not, neither do they spin.

Blogger Daal has more on her visit to India, including a colossal book fair in Kolkata.

Businessmen in Whately MA (named for Wilbur?) have plans for a marijuana dispensary which should take many customers' minds off drugs altogether (found via Miss Cellania).

The best evidence that Congress is dysfunctional is that it still hasn't put a stop to these goddamn twice-yearly clock changes.

Beware of AI voice-impersonation scams.

If you use "discord", whatever the hell that is, read this.

Robots keep getting more human-like.

Are you sure you want to die?

Interesting survey here on common attitudes about women's clothing in Islamic countries.

Small publications that aim to help new writers find an audience are getting flooded with AI-generated junk.

Flamingos form cliques.  Yes, it matters.

Here's a good discussion of EMDR therapy, used for treating various psychological conditions.  My counselor has used it with me several times, including for treating persistent suicidal impulses, and it's been surprisingly helpful; I recommend it for anyone suffering from such issues.  You do need a professional to work with you on it, though.

Researchers at Stanford CA have made a fascinating and innovative breakthrough against cancer.

See the aurora borealis.

How big is everything?

This is (part of) how demonization works.  Anyone I don't like is the ultimate evil.

"You can't replace action with thought."

They're using technology to make life shittier.

Blog commenters affirm that readership is down on blogs affected by Blogspot's new forced-login requirement for those who post sexually-explicit material (discussed in the preliminary note here).

If you have one of those networked security cameras, the cops and the Devil knows who else can get access to any video it has ever recorded.

CPAC 2023 looks like a clown show.

I don't know whether this job-hunting trick would work, but it might be worth a try.

What distinguishes humans from machines isn't emotion; it's defiance.

It took four years, but justice prevailed.

Religious authorities make up or abandon beliefs as it's convenient.

Listen to Bernie.

The totalitarian mind-set -- ve vill bully your child into participating in our rituals of subservience to the state.

Google and Facebook are collaborating with forced-birth enforcers to persecute women seeking abortions.

Never submit.

As housing male criminals in women's prisons becomes the norm in California, a wide range of problems are becoming more common.  Women inmates who object are punished.

These anti-free-speech dimwits have no place at a serious university like MIT.  Of course, the general right of free speech must apply even to those who oppose free speech.

Biden's new proposed budget shows that it's possible to greatly reduce the deficit entirely by moderate tax increases on the wealthiest, without cutting spending.

Florida's anti-abortion law has a rape exception -- but you'll need to prove it.

This woman made a threat of violence against a mother for breast-feeding in public, even threatening to punch the baby.

Apparently airlines charge fees for seating families together.  The DoT is trying to discourage the practice.

In most cases it's illegal for an employer to ask for a picture as part of a job application.  If you report a violation, you may even receive part of the fine collected, if any.

Misogynistic harassment on Twitter, already rampant before Musk took over, is now getting even worse.  Technical problems due to his mismanagement continue; most of the engineers needed to keep things running are gone.  Musk is refusing to even keep the bills paid.

Afghans who helped the US and found refuge here are in danger again.  Congress must be pressed to take action.

When the boss is this much of an asshole, it's no wonder people quit.

"Sorry, but essential absurdity is part of the package."

Wingnuts are making a fuss about a highly dubious report on covid.

Michigan's Republican party leader believes in "demonic forces" and "spiritual realities".

The professional offended people just keep getting more ridiculous.  By this standard we couldn't admire the Roman ruins in Britain or pretty much any contemporary architecture in the US -- they're ultimately products of imperial expansion too.

Separation of church and state gets a victory at the Supreme Court.

These assholes are hopeless.  Just nationalize the damn railroads.

One of America's leading defenders of democracy was inspired by a slave's act of resistance.

Many business interests are pushing back against Republican hostility to environmentally-conscious investing.

Political extremists tend to manifest these four traits.

Micromanagement is stupid.

"This is not a victory for equality, it is a catastrophe for childhood."

All 26 Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have refused to sign a letter condemning white supremacism.

Is Kansas considering making homelessness a crime?  This proposal exists, but it sounds unlikely to pass.

No, it is not true that "new research" showed masks to be ineffective against airborne diseases.

Feminism needs to evolve to cope with today's challenges (found via Dead Wild Roses).

Arkansas Republicans are rolling back child-labor laws.

Yet another reason to avoid doing business with Amazon.

Five victims of Texas's forced-birth law are suing the state government.

Also in Texas, a man is suing three women who helped his wife get an abortion.

As far-right Christianist nutballs flood into northern Idaho, frightened locals are fleeing.

The battle against gender ideology is slowly being won, even if many dissenters stay quiet due to fear.

Employers need to stop making the hiring process so difficult and complex.  What you're offering isn't that enticing.

A new Tennessee law would allow county clerks (not just clergy) to refuse to perform marriages that go against their personal religious taboos, clearly threatening same-sex, interracial, and mixed-religion marriages.  This seems unconstitutional since it enables discrimination by government.

Disney is union-busting.

This is why men shouldn't fight women.

Get ready for a surge of teenage pregnancies in Texas.

Republican presidential hopefuls refuse to openly confront the January 6 insurrection, the most serious violent attack on American democracy since the Civil War.  But Republican senators reject Tucker Carlson's ludicrous effort to portray the assault as peaceful.  The Sicknick family has spoken out.

What an utter, abject coward.

In a possible act of terrorism, a cell tower in Nebraska was destroyed this week.

We haven't heard the last of the Boogaloo Bois.

Wealthy, privileged, arrogant politicians want to "educate" Americans to stop claiming Social Security early.  They have no clue how desperate normal people are to leave the world of work as soon as possible.

This week the enemy has been crowing about a poll they claim shows that a majority of Americans view the word "woke" as a positive.  In reality, the poll asked respondents to choose between two offered definitions of the term, with the larger number choosing the more positive-sounding option.  It's the flip-side of how the word "socialism" is viewed negatively by most Americans, but when they're asked about individual socialistic policies such as Social Security, Medicare, etc, they view them positively.  The negative response to the word comes from a mistaken sense of what it means, and traditional stigma.  As to "woke", the preachy, woke-ified movies and TV I discussed here have almost all been total flops with audiences -- people don't want such stuff, no matter what they say about the word.  And the same poll also showed that more people consider the word "woke" an insult than a compliment, something none of the posts crowing about it have mentioned.

A proposed law in South Carolina would allow the death penalty for women who have abortions.

The US economy is on track to avoid a recession, except that the Fed seems determined to cause one.

Ideological wingnuts took control of a college in Idaho and completely buggered it up.

Women's sports are being destroyed.

California's government is cutting off all business with Walgreens due to its decision to stop sales of abortion pills.

Walgreens also has a history of refusing birth control to customers, though the problem seems to be more a matter of employees refusing to do their jobs due to personal religious taboos than of management policy.

Florida's proposed blogger registration law is getting some media attention.  Newt Gingrich has condemned it.  DeSantis is now pushing a law that would make it easier to sue citizens who criticize officials -- yet another attack on free speech.

America's narcissistic culture leads to neglect of the global struggle for freedom.

British schoolchildren fight back against unisex toilets.

Argentina is making a fuss about the Falkland Islands again.  Just ten years ago the population of the islands voted overwhelmingly to stick with the UK.

Stop the Orwellian nonsense and use plain English.

The BBC is renewing the Strike TV series based on JK Rowling's detective novels.

There's no place for any blasphemy taboo in a modern free country.  Taking the concept of blasphemy seriously is a fundamental threat to Western values.

Many aspects of life in the UK are getting worse over time (most of this applies to the US as well).

If somebody asks awkward questions, just beat him up.

Solar power surges in Australia as expensive, unreliable coal power declines (found via Annie).

Richard Dawkins speaks up for science in New Zealand.

Oxfam has a dubious record.

Europe's schemes to restrict cars from urban downtowns are killing businesses, leading to a backlash.

Tuesday saw further mass protests across France against president Macron's scheme to raise the retirement age, with unions saying three and a half million people participated.  Macron has arrogantly refused to even meet with opponents.  The unions are threatening a longer shutdown of the entire country, a move 59% of the people support.  Some observers say Macron's intransigence is pushing voters toward the far right for future elections.

Even the French city of Marseilles, known for its highly efficient water management, cannot fully escape the effects of climate-change-related drought.

Women in France marching for abortion rights were violently attacked by a misogynistic mob.

Putin thinks the West is too feckless and irresolute to win.  Is he right?

The Putin regime is stirring up unrest in Moldova, a neighbor country of both Ukraine and NATO.

Ukrainians are already rebuilding.

Putin's much-hyped big new offensive has already petered out with nothing accomplished.

Apparently some Russian soldiers are now reduced to fighting with shovels.  Russian conscripts explain why they refused orders in a terminally-dysfunctional army.

Georgia's ruling party has withdrawn a pro-Russian law in the face of mass protests by citizens.  Russian residents in Georgia are fleeing back to Russia.

It's fiction vs reality in Israel.

Organized protests in Iran have decreased, but women continue to defy the hijab law.

Some arrests have been made in the apparent poison-gas attacks on girls' schools in Iran, but many Iranians suspect the regime itself is the culprit.

The North Korean regime is exhorting women to have more children.  I predict this will work about as well as it has in China.

More links at Fair and Unbalanced and WAHF.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, a video of Hitchens on Islam, and spirituality.

o o o o o

It is the writer's duty to express his meaning clearly, using words the target audience will understand.  It is never the reader's job to do extra mental work to understand writing which the writer himself failed to make clear.

Today marks a hundred and one days since railway workers were robbed of their right to strike for paid sick leave.  Issue the executive order, Biden!

[Image at top made by Pliny; Georgia protest sign image found via Reaganite Independent.]