Link round-up for 7 May 2023

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

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Poor choice of launch location here.

It's a dog's life.

Ouch!

A post gets lots of likes, a cave painting is misinterpreted, and more.

A hard-won victory is all the sweeter.

We can go anywhere we want.

This guy filled his whole bathtub with "Orbeez", those tiny beads that expand when they come in contact with water.  It did not go well.

Lady M has found the world's creepiest garden gnome (NSFW).

This iceberg is heading for the right place.

If you eat that, you'll regret it.

The Far Corner Café finds a use for religious propaganda.

This is the right way to do the Barbie Girl song.

He likes to travel, but he's on a budget.

Solve the word puzzles.

He can sing and play the piano at the same time.

Working on a bridge, a dull job.

This cat is disquietingly smart.

See black fire.

See a scary cloud.

Imagine Star Wars in the style of Wes Anderson.

This AI-generated fake beer ad is..... uh..... I'm not sure there's a word for it.

What does a human look like to an octopus?

You can learn life lessons from dogs.

You can learn life lessons from cats.

Too many people live their lives pretty much like this.

He can carry all four at once.

There is art, and then there's bullshit.

Some orcas are big.

Gordon Lightfoot had many iconic songs -- here are just three of them.

Bizarre inspirational lizard story here.

Great-looking houses here.

What was the Colossus of Rhodes like?

Learn everything you didn't know about the Eiffel Tower.

Hear the terrifying sound of a samurai arrow.

ChatGPT can fool the non-expert.  Never trust it.

Remarkable archery shots here (loud annoying music -- you may want to mute).

The internet can ruin your life if you let it.

German scientists are researching a way to speed up healing.

The Earth is the way it is because of the Moon, probably a very rare astronomical situation in the universe as a whole.

The world now has eight billion people.  Here's where they live.

The Bud Light boycott continues to bite, with US sales for the week ended April 22 down 21% relative to that week last year (compare with a 17% drop the previous week), though the CEO is still trying to spin the situation instead of confronting the fact that the company has alienated a lot of its customer base.  It's not just about Dylan Mulvaney -- people in general are getting sick of being implicitly woke-lectured by corporations.  The widely-viewed video clip of that airhead VP of marketing sneering at customers in a barrage of woke jargon probably did the most damage.  Oh, and you can disregard the fluctuations in Anheuser-Busch's stock price -- stocks are always going up and down for a variety of reasons, and Anheuser-Busch has many other products besides Bud Light.  Actual sales figures for Bud Light are the relevant indicator of the effect of the boycott.

Bans or limits on leaf blowers and power mowers are spreading due to the pollution they generate.  I consider the sheer noise produced by leaf blowers to be a form of terrorism.

The Seattle Public Library is making all its e-books and audiobooks available to anyone in the US between 13 and 26, as a work-around to counteract local censorship.

Stop lying about the gay men who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Loneliness poses serious health risks.

It's not only Portland -- in Seattle, too, small businesses are being devastated by out-of-control crime.

How does a wife feel when her husband goes trans?

Must-watch video clip here on cultural relativism (two minutes).

Expect a surge of VPN use in Utah.

Stop privileging crazy people.

Hollywood studios hope to use AI to "replace" writers.  In practice it sounds like this would mean letting AI generate its usual junk and then hiring a writer to "revise" it into something usable -- enabling them to pay the writer less.

Sign an open letter here against the use of AI-generated "art" in journalism.

Activists are calling on governments around the world to protect services like encryption which safeguard online privacy.  While such efforts have some value, we can't depend on governments to protect privacy when they are the main threat that it needs protection from.  The emphasis must be on technological work-arounds to enable citizens to circumvent whatever intrusions upon privacy their governments do impose.

Response here to the old "the bathrooms in your house are gender-neutral" argument (click on blurred text to make visible).

These people actually, literally believe in the existence of demons.  In the twenty-first century.

It's important to understand the difference between faith and trust.

The destruction of a lesbian dating app exemplifies the inherent clash between trans ideology and gay rights.

Sometimes there are reasons for hate.

God is like Saddam Hussein.

The proposed EARN IT act threatens to erode free speech online.

Honest people communicate clearly; obfuscation and re-defining words are the tools of those who need to hide their real agenda.

The media are imperfect, but still essential.

Nordstrom is closing both of its downtown San Francisco stores, citing unsafe conditions and lack of law enforcement against rampant crime.  Twenty major retailers have pulled out of the city since 2020.

Hospitals which deny women emergency abortions are breaking federal law, which trumps state law.

No, they're not coming for the kids, don't worry, nothing to see here.  More discussion here.

This veteran pulls no punches responding to the spending cuts the House Republicans have passed.

$2.92 an hour, and even a lot of that gets clawed back.  And then they wonder why they can't get employees.

The recent killing of a shoplifter in San Francisco highlights issues with current policies about homelessness (see the comments).

Louisiana doctors discuss the real effects of the state's forced-birth law.

There's evidence that raising the minimum wage benefits employment.

"The women have no say in this and are forced to submit."

A waitress received a $4,400 tip -- and was then fired under bizarre circumstances.

Brilliant pushback here by a Texas legislator against a proposed Ten-Commandments-in-school law.

Florida is now rated the #1 state in education.  The selection criteria don't take into account the current frenzy of book-banning in schools.

Feminists were fighting back against trans ideology long before the conservatives even noticed it (found via SilverAppleQueen).

A mob took over several streets in North Portland to hold street races, while police did little to stop it.  North Portland is a heavily poor and minority area -- I suspect these abuses wouldn't be tolerated if they were happening in a less downtrodden part of the city.  At least the state is considering toughening laws against street racing.

Anonymous feedback from Portland police officers suggests that many are exhausted by the city's relentless wokeness and even looking for other jobs.  A city consultant responded by calling the cops names.

When you knuckle under to bullying, you just get more bullying.

The values of Islam are inimical to those of a free society, and it's Muslims themselves who are the main victims.

85% of registered voters are "closely following" news about abortion rights.  And 69% support keeping abortion legal in most cases, even including many who personally oppose it.

In Florida, an elected education official who criticized DeSantis is being "investigated" and threatened with firing.

Gender ideology is more like a religion than like a political movement.

As the WGA goes on strike, remember the importance of white-collar unions.

In most developed countries, at least two-thirds of the people agree that belief in God is not necessary for morality.

A proposed Texas law would allow the state to overturn and re-do elections, but only in blue-leaning Harris county.

No, trans activists aren't the same as Rachel Dolezal.

She was one of millions.  Never forget.

We know from experience how to handle crime.  It's just a matter of doing it.

The US is exporting its worst ideas to other countries.

May Day saw worker demonstrations all over the world, especially in France.

Corrupt authoritarian governments are using spyware to threaten and attack independent journalists.

Dead Wild Roses blog's Red Pen of Justice returns, here dissecting yet another case of erasure of women in Canada.

Hey Britain, quit being weird.  This is unworthy of a free society.  Some are voicing their objections.

Pictures here from the Let Women Speak event in London last Sunday.  Of course the usual violent thugs also showed up.

Many pictures here from the Dance for Freedom event in London last Saturday.

The online forum Ovarit has received a whiny, creepy e-mail from the Australian government complaining about its posters' use of normal English.  It's almost funny, but the Orwellian disdain for free speech is disturbing.  If you don't know who Riley Dennis is, see here.  The same jackasses are harassing women in Australia itself, too.

New Zealand is sinking into a morass of anti-science gobbledygook.

Maori activists push back against colonialist distortion of their culture and history.

Early in the Ukraine invasion, some Russian troops camped in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, with predictable results.

Putin appears to be preparing the Russian people for the possibility of defeat in Ukraine.

Iranians continue to defy the theocracy when they can.

Samsung has banned employees from accessing AI at work, citing security issues.

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

My own posts this week:  a musical tribute to libraries, some truths and inspirations, and our country's outrageous inequality.

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Quite a surge in page views this week.  Any other bloggers notice the same?

Many intellectually-curious people go through a phase of taking Ayn Rand seriously.  There's nothing wrong with that.  The problem is the people who never outgrow that phase.

"The right is much worse than the left" and "The left must be called out when it works evil" are both true, and I cannot ignore either of them.