Video of the day -- intelligent design

This one speaks for itself.  Be aware, they're not kidding about the disturbing images.

Link round-up for 18 April 2026

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

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This would work better without the elastic.

Here are some people being not very good at things (and also a monkey who gets exactly the result he wants).

It's a brazen food theft.

Stupidity and ladders make a bad combination.

The latest awful "AI" scheme might actually benefit some.

Using a wheelbarrow can get a bit tricky.

I guess she was hungry.

This dog no longer needs to go down the stairs.

Cats have their own approach to life.

This T-shirt promoting Los Angeles mass transit proved strangely popular.

It's a new era in chemical warfare.

This fish exists, but I'm not sure the soundtrack is real.

These are the childhood homes of the Beatles.

This is what Iran actually looks like.  Yes, there are deserts, but it's not all desert.

Here is the path of the Artemis mission's Orion spacecraft.

This is the planet Pluto.

What is the true origin of the Moon?  It's a surprisingly complex problem, and one which may be related to why intelligent life evolved on Earth.

The replanting of coral around Bali has produced a spectacular restoration of sea life.

Fairly soon, this treatment will be able to reverse osteoarthritis.

A new form of immunotherapy is defeating cancers.

These five vaccines now in development will be mighty weapons against disease.

Imagine if you found out the last seven years of your life didn't really happen.

If you have a grill you use for preparing food, read this.

Would you feel safe around this guy after hearing him talk?

Here's how you can use a smartphone to get rid of bugs.

For an older person, getting up after a fall can be difficult.  Here are some exercises to improve your ability to stand up.

You can use this new tool to sabotage chatbots.  I think this is ethically questionable because it enables one person to impose their own preferences on another, but it's out there.

Moon-denialist conspiratards are creating their own "AI" fake imagery to back their claims that the Artemis mission was faked.

FFS YouTube, stop dicking around with pointless "AI" features nobody wants.

RFK Jr's quackistocracy at the CDC is trying to hide a new report showing the effectiveness of covid vaccines.

A growing coalition of rights groups is calling attention to the dangerous potential of "AI" glasses.

BDSM is a dangerous mental illness.

Gizmodo argues that Windows 11 is beyond saving and Microslop should just move right on to Windows 12.  That would be fine if Windows 12 got rid of all the "AI" and spyware and bloatware and went back to just being a system that worked and did what the user wants.  Like Windows 7.  Actually they should just bring back Windows 7, exactly as it was, and stick with it forever.

"Let them keep advertising who they are.  It can only ever help our argument."

California's 2024 hike of the fast-food minimum wage to $20 did not reduce jobs, and caused only negligible price increases.

The "AI" we have now is not a step toward anything resembling real intelligence.

Liviu Librescu deserves to be remembered.

The Titanic, which sank 114 years ago this week, deserves to be remembered -- and respected.

Chiune Sugihara, too, deserves to be remembered and respected.

Our Trumpified government is aggressively pushing Christianity on its employees.

It's just a harmless fantasy (click image to unblur).

OpenAI is now making money from ads in ChatGPT, although it's only a drop in the bucket compared with what they will need for profitability.  Expect them to cram in more and more ads, as much as they can get away with.

She's trying to raise awareness about pedophilia.

If Trump's arch in Washington ever gets built, it will be a garish, tacky entry in a petty dick[tator]-measuring contest.

Diversity is our strength!

Péter Magyar's massive win over Orbán holds important lessons for Americans seeking to defeat Trump and Trumpism.  Consider also how Magyar's party overcame Orbán's control of the media.  A (partly) Hungarian-American blogger responds to the election result.

"We are not pro-Trump, but if he helps us get rid of this regime, Iranian people will stand by him. If any other country had helped us remove this regime, we would have appreciated that too, but no one did."

Affirmation of life in a place of death:  Holocaust survivors and October 7 survivors sing the Israeli national anthem in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.

The ICE funding fight was a big win for Schumer.

Data centers are flagrantly violating the law and poisoning Americans.  The NAACP is suing Elon Musk's xAI over one.  See this too.  Maine has banned most new ones until November 2027.

Forcing remote workers back into offices brings no benefit and has many drawbacks, notably lower morale and engagement, and often the best workers leaving entirely.

Do not use this photo.  It's fake and easily exposed as such.

Guess who has been funding CPAC for the last few years.

Americans overwhelmingly support Ukraine over Russia.  Even most Republicans do.

With Florida's attorney general investigating claims that ChatGPT helped to inspire a school shooting, OpenAI is backing a law that would immunize it from liability in such cases.

How do Trump supporters reconcile his immoral behavior with their own religious beliefs?  Three studies show it's mostly flat-out reality-denial.

Even many regular chatbot users recognize that their addiction is damaging their minds.

A local media investigation alleges shockingly callous behavior by Amazon management when a worker died at the company's warehouse in Troutdale OR (an eastern suburb of Portland).

Bosses love "AI", but the workers who actually have to use it hate it for the time it wastes and the extra work it generates, and many refuse to use it.  Here's more on some of that extra work.

Rising anti-Semitism on the left is spurring some to switch to the right -- but that isn't the solution because the right has the same problem.  Each "side" needs to put its own house in order.

Trump's supporters accuse him of going soft on mass deportation (remember that a strong majority of 2026 likely voters support mass deportation of illegals).

Burning down a warehouse gets the headlines, but "AI" sabotage is where the real action is.

Must-read of the week:  Anti-"AI" resistance is escalating.  Myself, I think it's just part of the broader rebellion against the arrogant oligarchs who have accumulated vast wealth and power at the expense of the rest of us.

These religious nuts seem obsessed with killing people who don't agree with them.

These non-religious nuts seem similarly obsessed, but fortunately have less power.

The books that are popular in a society tell you something about that society.

Anti-Semitic violence is still rising around the world, highlighting the vital need for Israel to exist as a refuge.

If their feelings are hurt by the truth, then their feelings can go fuck themselves.

In Canada, as here, many people who aren't haters or ideological crazies feel politically homeless.

The UK is about to embark on a horrifying medical experiment on humans.

The perverts know they need to hide this from the parents.

The Scottish Labour party is finally pivoting back to defending women's safety and privacy; the trans nutcases are predictably freaking out.

Iranians in London march against the theocracy.

In France, an Afghan migrant was arrested for a very Afghan crime.

Hungarians held a party in front of their Parliament building to celebrate Orbán's defeat.  A vast crowd chanted "Russians go home" on election day.

Péter Magyar's victory was not at all a defeat for nativism -- his positions include "a rejection of mass migration, a strongly conservative approach to LGBT issues, and military support for Ukraine", and he has even attacked Orbán as too permissive on immigration.  He also affirms Hungary's "special relationship" with Israel.

Ukraine, like Israel -- both smaller, free societies under attack by much larger genocidal regimes bent on annihilating them -- has been forced by circumstances to become an innovator in military technology.  Robots save lives by replacing human soldiers in some dangerous situations.  Ukraine will be a formidable asset to NATO in the future.

Trump's reduction of aid to Ukraine means he no longer has much leverage over that country.

See Ukrainian drones strike a Russian armored vehicle and a stack of anti-tank mines.

The Arab world has its own view of the Iran war.

Trump pressured Netanyahu into accepting the ceasefire in Lebanon.  This is looking more and more like the old pattern in the Middle East -- ignorant Western politicians aborting military operations before the job is completed, getting bogged down in ceasefires and meaningless "talks" which merely give the jihadists time to recover and rearm for future aggression.  Trump is, at least, ruthless enough to have done better, but too scatterbrained and easily distracted.

The Iranian theocracy carried out more than sixteen hundred executions in 2025.  Today it is escalating its persecution of the Bahā'i minority, a group especially hated by Islamist fanatics.  Executions of political prisoners are on the rise since the ceasefire began.  Not a word from those in the West who keep yammering against the war to overthrow the theocracy.  They care only about what they can use for cheap political point-scoring in their own domestic politics.

The theocracy is also apparently cracking down on Zoroastrians.  Zoroastrianism was Iran's main religion before the Arab-Islamic conquest in the seventh century, and about eight percent of the population is still Zoroastrian today.

Learn about the barbarity of the regime's recruitment of child soldiers.

A former CIA official warns that the worst possible outcome in Iran would be the survival of the regime.  There are already signs of fragmentation within the regime, despite the military attack being stopped prematurely.

The head of the Mossad, too, affirms that the job in Iran is not done until the regime is brought down.

Some Iranians are in despair because of the ceasefire, while others remain optimistic.

There are a few signs that Iranians are starting to take matters into their own hands, and resist.

Workers in India rebelled last weekend demanding better pay and basic rights.  Within three days, state governments made concessions.

More links at Red State Blues and Comedy Plus.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, a fantasy video "Exodus", and a poetic dream journey.

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Found via Annie.

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Meditation #19 -- dream journey

One night in dreams I drifted up, I left myself behind,
Abandoning the world itself, the green and warm and kind,
To fly as fast as thought toward the outer dark and cold;
In dreams to flirt with madness feels adventurous and bold.

It felt like eons passed in moments, scattered stars flew by;
The emptiness seemed infinite, until my tiring eye
Picked out a somber sphere ahead, unlit amid the black;
To see it close I dreaded, but in dreams you can't turn back.

And so that distant dayless other Earth enfolded me;
I walked its streets, beheld its towers, helpless to unsee.
Its people look like us, but are unlike us, soulless, hard;
A world of ghastly wisdom, perfect peace by madness marred.

I little understood the peace they'd won, the price they pay;
Enslaved by slaves, inverting paths of predator and prey.
I heard the steely rails a-clatter, through unending night,
To sinful citadels where nothing dies and wrong is right.

Above that world a crystal goddess flies, to guard its ways,
To shield its folk from justice, the eternal curse that slays.
No punishment can reach them while she still has eyes to see!
And she it was who sensed me, and in mercy set me free.

And so I dream-flew homeward, eager through the frozen dark,
Until ahead, beside the golden Sun, our warm blue spark --
I woke.  But to this day that horrid dream is wreathed in fear;
If it was real, the crystal goddess now knows we are here.

Video of the day -- Exodus

A strange piece of fantasy from France -- there's no dialogue, so it doesn't matter if you don't understand French.  Use fullscreen.

Truths and inspirations for 13 April 2026

If images are hard to see or read, click to enlarge.

First, congratulations to the voters of Hungary for removing the authoritarian, pro-Putin Viktor Orbán in a landslide in a record high-turnout election.  It's a win for Ukraine and -- contrary to what a lot of the bad guys hope -- not a loss for Israel.

[For the link round-up, click here.]

A school in Iran.  The big writing in the middle of the chalkboard says Jomhuri-e Eslāmi, meaning "Islamic Republic", apparently the object of all the middle fingers.  The smaller writing above is the resistance slogan zan zendegi āzādi, "woman life freedom".

Don't forget sewer workers and garbage collectors.  Just imagine what life would be like if their work wasn't being done.

Persian bisharaf = person with no honor.