Link round-up for 23 May 2026

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

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And they all fall down.

A lot of people need proofreaders.

When you're not sure, it's always best to be cautious.

Don't mess with these cats.

Heed the warning signs.

She welcomes her husband home.

These animals are irate, many of them justifiably so.

Somebody is not enjoying this plane flight.

This security guard takes his job very seriously.

"Enemy neutralized."

Learn to speak Canadian.

Cattle can be dangerous.

I'd like to recommend Arnonaut, a YouTube channel which I just discovered.  This guy "Arno the Overthinker" posts entertaining and eccentric videos about monsters of various kinds.  He's done only four so far -- he doesn't use "AI", so each video takes some time to produce.

Listen to the world's oldest known customer complaint (in the original language with translation).

Here's what you would have seen in the oceans of the Cambrian period, a little over half a billion years ago -- the first animals (except for the Ediacarans, and we're not even sure those were animals).

Leaf-cutter ants, seen on the march here, were actually the first inventors of agriculture.  They do not eat the leaves, but use them as a medium to grow a special fungus in their underground nest, and the fungus is what they eat.  The numbers seen in the video attest to the huge populations attained by their nests.

In earlier round-ups I linked to evidence that the shingles vaccine gives some protection against dementia.  It now looks like several other vaccines may also provide this, to a lesser extent.

Here's a plan to fight global warming by releasing millions of tons of biodegradable particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight.

When used correctly, wildflowers can replace pesticides.

Work like a Frenchman.

This is what food was like before modern regulation (found via SickoRicko).

The capitalist tech-bros' version of Utopia would be a Hell, even for themselves.

The ads on YouTube are getting totally intolerable.  Personally I don't see them thanks to uBlock Origin, but if I couldn't use an ad blocker, I'd just stop watching YouTube if it's this bad.

"AI" is causing a mass outbreak of stupidity.

He didn't bother anybody.

The Trump phone is already leaking its customers' personal data.

Lego is so successful because its entire strategy is the opposite of planned obsolescence.

In this country we abide by the Constitution, not some fatuous "international law".

Must-read of the week:  All across the West, a mass resistance movement is gradually emerging -- against authoritarianism, oligarchy, "AI", and the sterility and corruption of life under their influence.  I can't resist quoting this part:

One striking aspect of this is:  a lot of what has isolated, alienated, and rendered miserable a lot of men is all the dank corners of the Internet -- misogynist porn, the manosphere, conspiracy theories, the predatory industries of online sports betting and crypto currency, the sheer amount of time spent online that has withered habits and systems of face-to-face contact.  The Internet is itself largely a creation of men in Silicon Valley; they have made their products most of all for people like themselves, and it turns out that their products are toxic. Yeah, those men who sat on the platform with Trump on inauguration day and their fellow broligarchs.

This is what happens when male inmates are put into women's prisons because they claim to be women.  Every politician who has ever supported this policy should be removed from office and prosecuted.

The so-called "religious revival" among young men is mostly just thinly-disguised misogyny.

What was the "Nakba"?

Why on Earth was this story accepted for publication?  If it wasn't "AI"-generated, the author has some of the worst use of metaphors ever.

Sports Illustrated, at least, is taking "AI" plagiarism seriously (all text written or assisted with "AI" is plagiarism by definition, since the programs are "trained" by stealing real writers' work).

Here are some updates on the Israeli dog rape hoax (now there's a phrase I never imagined myself typing someday).

A heterosexual woman chooses not to date other women, and some people apparently find this odd.

Pizza Hut recently forced its franchisees to adopt an "AI" pizza delivery management system.  A major franchisee is now suing, claiming that the disruption and service failures caused by the "AI" cost it a hundred million dollars.

Barney Frank, the first openly-gay member of Congress, has died (obituary found via Rade).  Here's a clip of him in action.

From 1948 to 1967, Jerusalem was ruled by Jordan.  Here's how that went.

Remember Jocelyne Khoueiry, Lebanese resistance fighter (the story is true -- I checked).

Starbucks's "AI" tool was such a failure that it's being completely scrapped after less than a year.

Video evidence shows that an ICE agent flagrantly lied about a shooting in Minnesota.  There's now a warrant out for his arrest.

This evil place was destroyed (I suppose one could argue it should have been preserved as evidence, but one can surely understand the visceral reaction at the time).

Meet Gracia Mendes Nasi, who helped hundreds of persecuted refugees to safety in the sixteenth century.

Yet another commencement speaker has been energetically booed after praising "AI", although in this case the students were already hostile to him due (apparently) to sex-abuse allegations.  How the hell are these places choosing commencement speakers?

Yes, Trump's popularity has plummeted, but the Democratic party is still even more unpopular.  Never assume that election wins are guaranteed just because people hate Trump.  Also, in two or three years at most Trump will be gone, but the Democrats' culture-war baggage will still be dragging them down.

There's no reason to care what ignorant bigots think, except when they have political power.

A community college in Arizona used "AI" to read out the names of students as they received their diplomas, a simple task which it of course hopelessly bungled, spoiling the ceremony.

Pride Month needs a rethink.

Anti-Semitic hatred and threats are now a daily reality for Jewish legislators of both parties.

Discussion here on the Electoral College (read the comments too).

The University of Washington proposed a study involving filming schoolchildren to train "AI".  The backlash from parents was so furious that the university has dropped the whole idea.

Mamdani has posted a grossly dishonest video on Israel's history.  A historian has some more comments (in the nineteenth century Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, as was Bosnia until Austria annexed it, so traveling from one to the other would just have been moving within a single empire).

Amazon is requiring employees to meet quotas for "AI" use, but some are doing it their own way.

Trump has successfully primaried Thomas Massie (who led the push to release the Epstein files) and a Republican sitting senator (who voted to convict him after his impeachment for the January 6 insurrection) -- demonstrating both his continued dominance within the party and his spitefulness in using it.

Americans die younger, suffer more crime and infant mortality, and have less free time than western Europeans.  A higher per-capita GDP isn't everything, especially when that number is meaningless for most people because so much of the wealth we produce is being stolen and hoarded by a tiny parasitic oligarchy.

This open letter is a must-read.  Anyone who claims Israel is an "apartheid state" is either grossly ignorant or a shameless liar.

Enablers are trying to defend ex-prince Andrew and even Epstein himself.  Expect the same in the US if any of Epstein's prominent clients here are ever arrested.

They cheer for genocidal maniacs, and call peaceful patriots "fascists".

When the British voted for Brexit, it was an expression of cultural identity.

A British blogger calls out the current explosion of anti-Jewish hatred in his country.  More Americans need to do the same.

The UK needs to put a stop to this kind of thing as well.  The story is true -- I checked.  The police did try to provide Nowak with first aid after handcuffing him, but their actions remain outrageous.

The nativist resistance movement in the UK held another "Unite the Kingdom" rally in London last weekend.  An estimated sixty to seventy thousand people attended.

Maybe this idiot should actually watch videos before he posts them on social media.

In Australia you can get a huge fine for saying that a man is a man.

Multiple polls confirm that the AfD, Germany's main nativist party, is now leading in the polls nationally, at least six points ahead of any other party.  The tired old establishment-politics types are going apeshit.  Maybe if you scumbags had listened to and obeyed your voters' concerns about immigration and Islam, they wouldn't be about to shitcan you now.

This is about as bad as hypocrisy can get.

Talk about a shithole country.....

This man is an example of natural selection in action.

The Russian military is now resorting to infiltrating its troops disguised as civilians into Ukrainian villages.

This oil facility near Moscow, attacked by Ukraine, seems to be burning pretty well.  Tuapse has been hit again.  More than two-thirds of Russia's biggest refineries have been attacked, although of course keeping them offline requires continuous attention.

A Russian economist laments that Russia is losing the war.

"Let them fight, I don't mind.  There are plenty of blacks."

"A war cannot be won while the victim accepts moral responsibility for the suffering of the aggressor."

Almost 80% of Gazans have shown an interest in leaving the Gaza Strip.

Within a decade, Israel will have more than half of the world's Jewish population (due mostly to its own high birth rate, not to immigration).

Blogger Darrell Michaels suggests ending the war in Iran by, you know, ending it.

Faced with an out-of-control-pandemic, the rational thing to do is burn down the local hospital.

Johannesburg is heading for collapse as its infrastructure and administration break down.

More links at Red State Blues, WAHF, and Comedy Plus.

My posts this week:  A video on reviving anti-Semitism, an image round-up, and where I'd travel if I could.  I've seen reactions to that same video here and there on the left-wing political internet, most of which boil down to "but he's ignoring all our convoluted rationalizations about how it's not anti-Semitism when we do it!"  The video nevertheless speaks for itself.

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A few weeks ago I got the measles (MMR) vaccine, since the disease has been spreading in this country due to all the anti-vax morons, and I felt the need to take precautions.  The pharmacy charged me more than a hundred dollars for it.  This is the first time I've ever needed to pay for a vaccine.  The pharmacist said the measles vaccine is considered non-essential for insurance purposes.  I am now on Medicare, a federal program, so I'm wondering if RFK Jr and his anti-vax quackistocracy is trying to phase out paying for some vaccines.  Anyone else run into this?

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Daydreams of far places

Recent exchanges in the comments of a couple of other blogs got me thinking about travel.  I haven't done any traveling since my visit to Ukraine in 2007 -- almost twenty years, the longest time in my whole life without taking a trip somewhere.  I went to Britain numerous times as a minor (because of my parents frequently going back and forth between their country of birth and their adoptive one).  I've been to Syria, Jordan, and Egypt in 1979, to Germany in 1984, to Japan in 1995, and to Ukraine in 2007.  I've also been to various places within the US, notably Texas in 2002.

My interest in travel hasn't changed, but personal circumstances have.  During the nine years I was focused on taking care of my mother, taking a trip somewhere else was obviously out of the question.  Even after that, financial and health issues rendered it impractical.  The money situation has since improved, the health situation has not.  Enduring a long plane flight might be beyond me; the kind of extensive walking around cities which I used to relish certainly would be.

Still, I sometimes think about where I would go if circumstances allowed.  Five places in particular stand out:

1.  Italy.  For history and architecture, nowhere else compares.  This is the land that launched both the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, and the physical traces of both are still thick on the ground there, to be seen and experienced.  To walk the streets of Pompeii, to see where Galileo lived and worked..... I really should have done this already.  And so much monumental architecture still stands, from the Roman Pantheon to the Colosseum to the incredible works of the Renaissance, the visible proclamations in stone of our civilization's re-ascent from the darkness.

The one negative would be that I know almost no Italian and it seems like a rather challenging language to study.  (I reject the attitude of "don't bother, everybody speaks English anyway" -- not everybody does, and this kind of arrogance is part of what gives other people a bad impression of Americans.  I always try to learn enough of the local language to at least handle basic practical things.)  Also, I'm now sixty-five, and language-learning ability declines with age.

2.  Iran.  Obviously this would be out of the question until the current regime is gone and a stable civilized government is in place, but that could happen even within a year -- things are very much in flux now.  Like Italy, Iran in ancient times built a great empire which played an important role in the rise of Western civilization, and far more of the roots of Western culture (and the monotheistic religions) trace back there than most Americans realize.  And like Italy, it boasts a great abundance of impressive historic architecture, including some ruins from ancient times and many more examples from within the last few centuries.  I posted about the country here.

I can speak a little basic Persian, and it was certainly the easiest language I've ever studied, with very simple and logical grammar compared to most (the large number of Arabic loan words would be an obstacle for most Americans, but I already knew a fair bit of Arabic before I started studying Persian, so to me it was less of a problem).  If there's any language I could still get up to a useful level in, it's probably this one.  On the minus side, I have a very bad physical reaction to cigarette smoke, and I get the impression it's hard to completely avoid it in Iran.

3.  The land of my ancestors.  Family visits as a child are not nothing, but I'm sure Britain has changed a great deal in the almost fifty years since I was last there.  There is a huge amount of interesting medieval and Renaissance architecture, as well as more Roman relics than you'd think (one of my few somewhat-clear childhood memories is of walking Hadrian's Wall), as well as libraries and museums without parallel.  And, of course, language wouldn't be a problem.

It is, of course, where my family originated and mostly still lives.  Everyone who actually remembers my visits as a child must be dead or elderly by now, and most of my living relatives would have no idea who I even was, but it might be possible to make a few connections.  There is one person in particular I would want to look up, though he must be at least in his seventies by now.

4.  France.  It has a similar range of architecture and history as the UK, with more Roman traces in the south, and is the home of the second most influential culture in the modern West after the Anglo-American.  It's also much more modern and advanced than most Americans think, being a leader in areas like high-speed trains and nuclear power.  One of my favorite blogs, Cas d'intérêt (sadly now apparently defunct) had many posts about travel in France and helped stimulate my interest in the country.

I know only a little French, but while it's closely related to Italian, it seems more accessible somehow, probably because so many English words come from it and the French originals are thus familiar.  The French people, however, have a reputation for being notably intolerant of those who don't know their language or are bad at it.

5.  India.  My counselor is fascinated by India and has been there more than a dozen times; talking with her about it led me to take more interest in it as well.  While its culture is far less related to our own than are those of the other countries on this list, it is incredibly variegated.  The Taj Mahal is the most Persian-looking structure I've ever seen, while there are old temples in Chennai and elsewhere (especially in the south, the most developed and interesting part of the country) which look like nothing else in the world.  Also, this is the future.  If the US is ever superseded as the world's leading country, it will probably be by India, with its demographic vigor, open society, and strong democracy, rather than by China with its imploding birth rate and its paranoid, stodgy, totalitarian gangster-regime.

Learning "the" local language would really not be an option -- almost every state has a different language, and all of them seem complex and difficult, from what I know about them.  English, however, is widely used for communication between speakers of different Indian languages, so I would be able to take advantage of that, and hopefully still not come across as an arrogant and ignorant American.  A bigger concern would be hygienic safety in what remains, by Western standards, a largely underdeveloped country.  I'd be concerned about how safe things like restaurants or hospitals would be.

For any country, of course, local attitudes toward Americans are a potential issue.  Everything I know about Iran recently suggests that most people there have a favorable view of Americans -- they know the US is an enemy of their ghastly regime, and this feeling will presumably become even stronger if we actually help them overthrow it.  For the other countries listed, I don't know how much blowback ordinary Americans can expect from Trump's relentless trashing of our country's international image and reputation.

I'd be particularly interested to hear from any readers who have been to any of these countries, especially recently.

Image round-up for 19 May 2026

More pictures from my collection -- to see any image at full size, right-click and open the link in a new tab.

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

Special delivery for a certain fellow blogger

I'd guess this is from Germany (in German, Gift means "poison")

According to the place where I found this, the dumbass in the pickup truck was fiddling around on his phone instead of paying attention

Audrey Hepburn

Norway

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, seen from above

Rural Britain

Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Athens, built in 161 CE and still in use

Southwestern edge of Las Vegas

Noisy-le-Grand, France (yes, that's what it's called)

Amsterdam

Toledo, Spain