Link round-up for 26 April 2025

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

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Cats are so jumpy this one nearly went into orbit.

Let's just set this truck right way up..... oops.

Jeez, stop flirting with me in front of all these people.

Is he bringing them some new altar boys or something?

Sometimes it's hard to let go.

He's such a romantic type.

When it's icy, just stay home.

Some not-so-great moments in editing here.

Even if you're not a leopard, you can eat these faces.

Some nice pictures of Houston here (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

Some examples of Paris's new architecture here, plus an exhibit by a prominent photographer.

Tales of a vengeful ghost whale haunt Japan, probably dating back to 1969 when commercial hunting was driving some whale species close to extinction.

Check out the relative sizes of these stars.  They are unusual cases, though -- the majority of stars are red dwarfs, smaller than our Sun.

Here's what we know about one of those red dwarfs.

Plastic pollution on the Australian coast is declining substantially, implying that there is less of it in the ocean, at least in that area of the world.

Sometimes ADHD is impossible to defeat.

The internet is faster than an earthquake.

We have ad-blockers -- we need "AI"-blockers.

Here's why Alien Resurrection is the ultimate Easter movie.

Trump opens up new waters to commercial fishing (link from reader Chief Squirrel).

Some "news" services specialize in using clickbaity headlines to trick you into reading trivia.

Evangelicals' macho vision of Jesus suggests a fascinating new heresy.

Librarians are dangerous (found via Miss Cellania).

We need fewer talkers and better listeners.

If you have nothing to say, it's OK to say nothing.

Internet scams continue to proliferate because people are more gullible these days.  Be very wary of anyone asking for money unless you know who it is.

Don't lose yourself in fantasies of "The Revolution".  It's not coming and would probably be a nightmare if it did.

If you don't want to switch to Windows 11, one version of Windows 10 will continue to get support for several more years, and comes without a lot of the built-in junk most people don't want.

Car companies are finally listening to customers and bringing back physical knobs and buttons instead of touch-screens.

Here's a tip for keeping wasps and bees away.

Graham Linehan is asking to hear from parents who lost children to the trans cult.

Lots of new detail here on the impending re-imposition of the "Recall" spyware feature of Windows 11.  Microsoft has made it easier to get rid of, but as the author says, it "continues to demand an extraordinary level of trust that Microsoft hasn't earned".  The comments are worth a look too.

Never discuss anything sensitive in social media DMs.  They aren't really private.

Plain, basic "dumbphones" are making a comeback, with one billion of them sold last year, up from four hundred million in 2019.  Sales of smartphones are still higher, but are declining.

The GI Rights Hotline is a free, confidential, non-governmental phone counseling service for members of the US military, and can give advice about many issues including ethical questions about things the current administration my order the military to do.

Some businesses refuse to accept cash for payments, even though -- at least here in Oregon -- such a policy is illegal.

"So the moment he is there, he's a bad man."

By participating in resistance, you embolden others.

See pictures and reporting from the April 19 nationwide protests here and here.  See also reports from Cincinnati, Belfast ME, and York ME (which got a lot of hostile reactions -- it's a very small town).  I haven't yet seen any reports on how turnout compared to April 5.

Here's why "AI" won't replace nearly as many jobs as we've been told.

A culture of rage is a dangerous thing.

A recent DeSantis Zoom meeting flopped hilariously due to technical incompetence, and there's a more serious issue on the horizon.

Four resistance organizers declare that the tide is turning against Trump.

My state seems to be heading for another bad summer of wildfires.

"I am tired of solving made up emergencies."

A school board official bullied and silenced a crying, traumatized schoolgirl.

Conservative Catholic archbishop Viganò wasted no time in attacking pope Frances after his death.

Trump has demanded that Putin stop attacking Kyiv -- but he did it on Truth Social.  Does the Russian government even read that?  I hope he at least sent the message via normal diplomatic channels too.

This is what we need -- affordable, no-frills cars that just get the job done without a lot of fancy extra junk.  I think they'll make a lot of money.

This kind of abuse and deportation will destroy the US tourist industry.

65% of California likely voters, and almost half of Democrats, support rules requiring athletes to play on teams of their actual sex rather than "gender identity".

A proposed Indiana House resolution embodies Christian supremacism and historical lies.

The Trump administration is denying federal aid to Arkansas after a series of tornadoes.  In 2023, Biden immediately approved aid to the state after a similar disaster.

The Daily Kos is platforming a religionist bully trying to use racial identity politics to intimidate atheists into silence about the evils of religion.  An atheist poster has responded, pretty effectively.  But when is the left going to outgrow this inane, cultish babble about categories of people having "privilege"?

Here are some of the latest things on which Trump is backing down.

Kara Dansky wrote this open letter to Kamala Harris in August 2024.  We might be in a very different place now if Harris had taken its advice.

A Republican candidate for governor of California proposes that female illegals be allowed to stay in the US if they marry American incels.  I don't think these women are that desperate.

About half of the country is heading for a dramatic drop in housing prices.  For some reason this author describes housing becoming more affordable as a "calamity".  (He also does that thing of writing "reign in" when it should be "rein in"..... sigh.  That one really grates on me.)

This is a celebration of treason and slavery.

Reports on the recent UK Supreme Court ruling about women's rights illustrate how the US media distort the news.

Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione.

The state of New Mexico has been getting a lot of things right.  This shows what good policies can accomplish if they're given a chance.

Kilmar Ábrego García's wife has had to move to a safe house because the government posted a document online that had her address in it.

The impact of the China trade war on US ports and trucking hasn't been felt yet, but it will be massive.

Non-religious parents, like religious ones, should have the right to opt out of ideological indoctrination in schools.

Trump's chief toady at the FCC is trying to dictate how the media cover the news, in a flagrant attack on the First Amendment.  I've been saying for years that it would be horribly dangerous for the government to have the power to define "misinformation" and try to micromanage the media like this.

British police refuse to investigate publicly-displayed death threats.

Only hard-core misogynists would vandalize a statue of a suffragist heroine.

It was a celebration of hatred and urine.

After the resounding defeat of trans ideology in the UK, what comes next?

Much of the Labour party has still not come to its senses concerning trans ideology.  "Identity politics, rather than class politics, is their overriding concern."  They really need to stop calling themselves "Labour".

Women and Jews are under vicious attack, and the left is dithering and dodging the issue instead of standing up for the victims.

Germany is idiotically shutting down its non-fossil-fuel energy sources.

The coming election of a new pope will highlight the divisions between Catholicism's European and US wing, which is relatively liberal, and its African and Latin American wing, which is much more traditional and hostile to modernity on issues like gay rights.

See Lech Wałęsa's letter to Trump (it's real -- I checked).

An ammo dump has exploded in Kirzhach, Russia, presumably due to either carelessness or Ukrainian drone attack.  Debris fell as far as four miles from the site.  It was quite an explosion.

This drone's-eye view of a smaller attack shows how accurately drones can be guided to their targets.

Georgians have been protesting every day for 145 days against Russian domination.

More links at WAHF, Red State Blues, and Chop Wood Carry Water.

My own posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, and the movie The Gorge.

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Sorry, I don't care about the death of pope Francis.  At all.  Not even a little bit.  I suppose he was marginally less evil than most popes, but he was still the head of a global organized-crime syndicate dedicated to shielding child molesters and covering up their disgusting crimes, which still continues to use every legal trick available to weasel out of paying compensation to the victims.  If a mafia boss doesn't hate gay people, I suppose that's a point in his favor, but he's still a mafia boss.

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Trump backs down!  Trump caves!  Trump knuckles under!



I myself would be very nervous about leaving the country right now, due to the risk of not being able to get back in.  I'm a native-born US citizen (born in New York state), but I don't know how I'd prove that in an airport customs office.  I speak English with a noticeable accent, which most native-born citizens don't.  I don't have any social media and never carry any device on which my e-mails could be checked, but that in itself might be seen as suspicious.  The abuses we've seen have a potential chilling effect on dissent -- which is doubtless the intention.