Link round-up for 8 August 2021

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

o o o o o

Hey, mommy has some new sunglasses.

All around me are familiar faces.....

If your car is frequently bird-beturded, you'll like this revenge fantasy.

Learn the difference between Poland and Indonesia.

Some medieval humor here.

A startling logo, but only at first.

Thank goodness he's gay! (found via SickoRicko).

A weatherman shows the path of a storm (found via Funny Links).

Nobody needed to know this.

Rawknrobyn weaves her blog comments into a new Gospel.

RO reports on unzipped flies, a bad doctor, and a big book.

The dog treats are being distributed.

Keep seagulls away from your pizza.

Finnish bloggers have the best URLs.

Uranus is surrounded by vast clouds of fart.

Who was the real villain?

Your wiener is a chick magnet.

God has his priorities.

"Why did men look like that in the 70s and how do we get it back?"

It's not too early to shop online for Halloween supplies.

You'd better give him his six feet of distance.

If you can't find your dog.....

She uses her awesome powers for good.

This dress will make you look fat later.

An evil pelican gets what he deserves.

Captain Kirk wasn't what you think.

This is psychological abuse.

There's nothing left to destroy.

At long last, she got her helicopter ride.

Take an in-depth look at that famous Abbey Road album cover.

What does it mean when you dream about water?

They re-live earlier days.

Toucans are weird.

Cat vs mirror (watch to the end).

Shrooms turn Lovecraftian.

He rescues a cat stuck in a tree.

One vertebra bone was as big as your whole torso.

This anti-vaxer came so close to figuring it out.

Back then, there were no video games.

These headlines exist.

My body, my choice!

There's a reason why characters in 19th-century novels were always falling ill.

Do you take the deal?

Perfect voice meets perfect acoustics.

Time to relax and watch the rain.

It would take a brave coronavirus to mess with this guy.

"But she's no longer in it".....

A massive scandal erupts in the Biden administration.

The real world is not fandoms and identities.

This lady has a suggestion for Elon Musk.

".....without doing your own research?"

God's ways are not so mysterious.  But he's weird.

Covid-19 has mutated.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

"Respect my truth."

Are Marvel superhero movies art?

I don't think Texas has legal marijuana yet, but you can still get stoned there.

The rules must be the same for everybody.

AutisticAF's latest podcast focuses on the struggle to thrive in a world that wasn't made for you (this world focused on work and money isn't made to help any of us thrive).

Androids are becoming a thing, but their progress is somewhat uneven.

Anti-vaxers have their uses.

South Dakota's Sturgis super-spreader event returns, bringing together 700,000 people and a few zillion coronaviruses with no precautions.

Housing-industry lobbyists are infuriated that millions of people won't be forced into homelessness in the middle of the pandemic.

The latest wingnut scam is a doozy, complete with computer virus.

Social science has abandoned rigor and become more like religion.

Hackwhackers remembers labor leader Richard Trumka, a personal acquaintance.

Being an atheist in Mississippi is like being surrounded by aliens.

Some useful info here about how Dreamwidth works.

Local asshole discovers Twitter is not the real world.

Half of all the House Republicans are still not vaccinated (found via Yellowdog Granny).

Don't be a slave.

Two more covidiots wise up too late.

Sometimes you just need to stand up for yourself.

Your smartphone will soon be spying on you more than ever.  Just get rid of the damn thing.

Is the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement a cult?

Most of America's dumbth is concentrated in just one region of the country.

"One woman's skull was fractured, the other not.  And just so you know, I enjoyed it."

Yet another scamming preacher gets exposed.

Men -- if you fear chronic dongwilt, get the covid-19 vaccine (found via Miss Cellania).

Blogger Bluzdude supports closing the southern border, sort of.

Don't be like Scott Apley (found via Mock Paper Scissors).

Target your anger correctly.

Gallup asked actual Hispanic people about the "woke" neologism "Latinx" and only 5% of them like it.  Discussion here.

We used to be much tougher on people who helped spread disease.

Don't let menacing platitudes undermine support for vigorous freedom of speech.

"There's only 1 step between this and the Kool Aid and Jim Jones."

No one has a duty to subsidize someone else's wish to own a business.  If they want us to do this shit they better pay properly.  And a lot of businesses deserve to go out of business.

Here's how racial bullying could become perceived as "woke".

40% of new US covid-19 infections are in just three Republican-run states.

Companies and workers are now practically at war over work-from-home.  Managers hate it because it exposes the fact that many of them don't do anything productive.

California's prison system is becoming a house of horrors.

No, the two parties are not the same (found via Hackwhackers).  Nor are their rage (found via Yellowdog Granny).

The concept of "Islamophobia" is bullshit.

An ICU doctor confronts covidiot dumbth (link from Lady M).

Five women have now filed reports with the police about the Wi Spa incident.

Getting covid-19 can be expensive.

No, it wasn't higher unemployment pay that was keeping people from working.

Telling lies does real harm.

A higher minimum wage also benefits people who make more.

Tennessee's Republican governor supports paying for vaccinations, but there's a catch.

What's the real source of wingnut madness?  Kevin Drum considers several possibilities in detail, and settles on propaganda media (found via Hackwhackers).

"Until 2019, one hospital group instructed medics to withdraw treatment if a female patient refused to accept a physically intact male on women-only wards."

How can you identify a true Christian?

Here's the difference covid-19 vaccines can make.

"I think it is very good when people suffer."  More here.

Canadian blogger The Arbourist writes to Canada TV about trans propaganda.

Right-wing and Islamist terrorists have something in common.

The evidence shows that hate-speech laws don't reduce extremism, and may even help it thrive.

Miniature "Miyawaki forests" help preserve biodiversity in Europe, though I doubt they're big enough to help much with the climate crisis.

Authoritarian regimes are hiding their true covid-19 death tolls.

In some ways, South Korea is not very enlightened.

With an imploding birth rate and huge imbalance of the sexes, China faces demographic disaster.  I suspect the "lying flat" rebellion against shitty working conditions also plays a role in the labor shortage.

The Chinese regime is going to absurd lengths to make it harder to leave the country.

Democracies standing up to China:  Germany, India, and the UK are sending warships to the South China Sea, while France has sent a nuclear submarine.  Japan will deploy missiles near Taiwan and the Senkaku islands.

Afghanistan descends into Hell as the US pulls out.

There's still a lot we don't know about the origin of covid-19, but the "engineered bio-weapon" idea remains implausible.

More links at Perfect Number and Fair and Unbalanced.

o o o o o

In case you missed it -- this week I posted about a new avatar pic, anti-vaxers in kamikaze mode, and tolerance and individual choice.

Tolerance and individual choice

I would apply the last point to religion vs religious people -- religion is a form of ideology.  Religion is evil, most religious people are not.

What I find bizarre and repugnant is the attitude that there exists some one "correct" way of being which is right for everybody.  I'm willing to tolerate pretty much any preference or behavior that doesn't involve direct and immediate harm, harassment, or threats to the rights of anyone else (I reject overly broad, nebulous, or indirect interpretations of "harm" which in practice could be used to justify banning pretty much anything that somebody doesn't like).  People are different, and have different needs and desires.

Most pornography doesn't do a thing for me, and I even find a lot of it actively repulsive.  But I have nothing against it for those who do like it.

I don't own a gun.  That's a personal choice I've made.  I have nothing against those who do choose to own guns.  That's a choice they have a right to make.

I don't use drugs (I tried marijuana after it became legal here, but eventually lost interest), but I have nothing against those who do, and imprisoning people for possession of drugs for personal use is insane.

I hate arguing and debating and refuse to engage in it.  I don't deny that it can be entertaining or valuable for those who do engage in it.

There's nothing more revolting to me than the smell of cigarette smoke, but if some people choose to smoke, it's their own business, so long as they don't do it in situations where other people are exposed to it.

I reject snobbery.  I'm intensely interested in languages, evolutionary biology, science fiction, history, travel, and technology.  I have no interest in sports, social media, rap music, cooking, superhero movies, gardening, celebrities, or romance novels.  I don't look down on people whose constellation of enthusiasms and dislikes is different from mine.  Whatever excites you is what's right for you.  Nobody's taste is better or worse than anybody else's.

If you disapprove of same-sex marriage, then just don't marry someone of the same sex.  If you don't approve of birth control, then just don't use it.  If you imagine that there is such a thing as "overpopulation", then just refrain from having children.  If you believe that having sex outside marriage is wrong, then just don't do it.  If you're offended by books and articles that attack religion, feminism, patriotism, atheism, or whatever, then just don't read them.  But don't go around being a pain in the ass toward people whose values and desires lead them to seek out different experiences and ideas than you do.

And we should always be striving to find ways to broaden the range of acceptable speech and behavior, not seeking ways to limit it.

The world would be a very boring place if everybody lived within such a narrow range of acceptable options as the busybodies wish to impose.

Kamikaze anti-vaxers

At the current phase of the covid-19 pandemic, the US finds itself in the peculiar position of being morally obligated to attempt that which is almost certainly impossible.

I assessed the situation here last week.  Of 258 million US adults, 80 million (31%) are unvaccinated.  Given the far higher transmissibility of the delta variant, it will probably infect most or all of that population within about four months (except for those among them who do get vaccinated in the meantime).  And given the greater severity of the disease it produces, including in young and otherwise healthy people, this could mean a death toll in the millions.

Vaccinated people can still contract the delta variant -- the main protection the vaccine provides is that if they do contract it, it very rarely progresses to really serious illness.  So vaccinated people are basically potential carriers -- they almost never get very sick, but they can transmit the virus to unvaccinated people who are at much greater risk of severe illness or death.

Frankly, I am long past caring about the willfully unvaccinated -- the Trumpanzees and conspiracy believers and miscellaneous idiots who make up the great majority of that 80 million.  These are the people in the "fuck your feelings" T-shirts, the ones who cheered Trump on through every lie and betrayal, the BFYTW assholes, the people who keep bellowing that global warming is a hoax while half the northern hemisphere dries out and burns, the morons who call masks "face diapers" and spent the last year and a half bullying store clerks who were required to enforce masking rules, the Deliverance mutants who will shit on anything and everything to "own the libs".  They hate and despise people like me, and they aren't shy about saying so straight out, and I have no qualms about returning the sentiment.  The more of them the delta variant mows down, the better off the country will be.

So it's tempting to say, as Andrew Sullivan does:  let it rip.  Almost all the people who die will be those who freely chose to make themselves vulnerable while spitting in our faces, and there's no reason for those of us who were responsible, who wore masks and got vaccinated, to accept any further annoying precautions to protect assholes who refuse to lift a finger to protect themselves (or anyone else).

The problem is the potential innocent victims.

There are some people who, for legitimate medical reasons, can't get the vaccines.  There are some people with immune-system problems for whom the vaccines do not work.  There are some people who, even if they are fully vaccinated, have other medical conditions which put them at risk of serious harm if they do nevertheless get infected (here is the voice of one such person).  The numbers of such cases are relatively small, but they matter, and the wingnuts are endangering them by rejecting the vaccines and other precautions.  So the government needs to press on with its efforts to vaccinate as many of the remaining 80 million as possible.

This is, by the way, why even vaccinated people should return to mask-wearing in high-transmission regions.  Masks mainly protect other people, not the wearer.  Since vaccinated people can get the virus and transmit it even though they rarely get very sick, wearing masks still helps protect those who are vulnerable for the above reasons.

There's also the issue of indirect effects of overwhelming the health-care system.  As hospitals get swamped with covid-19 patients, the capacity available to treat "normal" emergencies like heart attacks and strokes is correspondingly reduced.  Some number of additional deaths will result from this.

Unfortunately, as I noted at the beginning, the task of persuading the great majority of the vaccine refusers is almost impossible.  As far as I can see, right-wing blogs and sites are still just doubling down on the same old misinformation and conspiratardia.  The vaccines are killing huge numbers of people and may even be a plot to reduce the world's population by killing or sterilizing people.  It's a conspiracy of globalists / Jews / Satanists / pedophiles (yes, really) to enslave us all.  Doctors are exaggerating covid-19 death numbers because they somehow make money that way.  Biden is a pedophile and Fauci is an evil monster who conspired with China to create the virus in the first place.  Most of the people now getting hospitalized are vaccinated, not unvaccinated.  Hydroxychloroquine works (yes, some of them are still pushing that) and the vaccines don't.  The fight against masks and vaccines is an existential struggle against descending tyranny.  Republican leaders who now urge vaccination are "cucks", lackeys of the vast conspiracy.  You need to spend some time reading this stuff in their own words, not mediated through left-wing paraphrases, to grasp how hopeless the task of coaxing the hard-core wingnuts out of this seething maelstrom of bullshit really is.  It's become part of their tribal identity.

Yes, the number of people getting newly vaccinated has ticked up a bit; it's about half a million a day now.  But that's nowhere near enough to work through eighty million people fast enough to avert mass deaths, even if it continues at that rate, which I doubt it will.  What we're doing is collecting the last of the low-hanging fruit, the people who hadn't been vaccinated out of laziness or relatively weak objections.  For them, monetary incentives or restrictions on unvaccinated people's access to workplaces and public spaces are effective.  The hard-core Fox-addled wingnuts, who really believe that this is all a vast evil conspiracy, are a different matter.

The one thing that, so far, does seem to be able to bring them around is seeing their unvaccinated relatives or close friends die of covid-19.  But each such death convinces only a few other people, so to reach tens of millions of anti-vaxers would take millions of deaths.

The government must do what it can, and we must do what we can, for the sake of the innocent potential victims.  But the wingnuts are now in what amounts to kamikaze mode, and while they can't win that way (whatever that would even mean), we must recognize that we probably can't stop them from doing a lot of damage.

Minor blogging note

After almost fifteen years of using that picture of the Beta Lyrae star system as an "avatar", I've decided to make a change.  The old image was significant to me, but for reasons not easily explainable to anyone else.  The new one is, at least, actually me, which the old one was not (sorry if anyone was misled, but no, I don't actually look like a pair of stars surrounded by a glowing-red spiral of fusing hydrogen).  It's an X-ray taken in 2009 after I suffered a concussion in a bicycle accident.  I think I was wearing some kind of neck brace, which is why it looks thick at the back.  I've never allowed any other pictures of myself to appear on the internet, but I figure this one won't be too much of a personal-security problem.

Link round-up for 1 August 2021

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

o o o o o

Swimming seems like a better option, to some.

Whatever this thing is, it has more athletic ability than I do.

A perfectly normal news item.

Little kids learn culture-specific behavior very young.

"Looks to be some kind of menu."

Oh no, your alphabet is racist.

We behold his exalted presence.

I don't even need to read Finnish to know they clocked Bezos's rocket.

Thus it was done in the ancient times.

Brief amusing animations here.

Murr Brewster buys a chair and deals with a spiky interloper.

Nice doors.

Nice signs.

Some immodest trees here.

One town has an exemplary vaccine roll-out.

He started a library for dogs.

Use roller coasters to understand literature.

This gender-identity thing is becoming an absolute joke.

Keep your ferret clean.

Treat your skeletons well.

Somebody shouldn't be designing clothes.

Desire needs to go both ways.

Big Bad Bald Bastard presents his favorite vegetable -- just be careful where you get it.

Look close, then zoom out.

Some good health advice here.

If you believe the world was created for humans.....

Nice resemblance -- wonder if she could be a descendant.

Here's how Eratosthenes of Alexandria correctly calculated the circumference of the Earth 2,200 years ago.

This is what lightning looks like in slow motion.

I've been here -- Petra, Jordan.  The structures are more than two thousand years old.

This is the Austrian National Library.

See a frighteningly impressive landslide in India.

This person exists.  And I can only assume this person exists.

Do it your own way.

People in "burger flipper" jobs work damn hard.

Trae Crowder is out of patience with the anti-vaxers.

I've seen hospital rooms that were more "homey" than this house.

Remember Dr Rosalind Franklin.

A map of the US rail system startles several foreign bloggers.

Important reminder here about chemicals.

Don't give chronically-ill people medical advice unless they've made it clear that they want it.

We are now where France was over 200 years ago.

This restaurant serves corona, and I don't mean the beer.

"Pretty much any societal rule... what happens if you break it?  Who would it hurt?  Who benefits from it in the first place?"  Podcast here, transcript here.

Tumblr promotes groupthink, bullying, and highly destructive social interactions.  But teens' addiction to social media stems partly from adults crushing their freedom in every other sphere.

State and local governments still hold forty billion dollars in unspent assistance money meant for people facing eviction.  This is intolerable.

A shockingly racist letter sent to several Dallas families appears to be a hoax.

The vaccines are working (found via Hackwhackers) -- get your shot.

The pandemic has emphasized the shitty mentality of the wingnuts, but there was plenty of evidence of it before.  They continue to fulminate against vaccination, and yes, religion is a major part of the problem.  They are reveling in super-spreader events and shouting down right-wing leaders who try to wise them up.  It's past time to stop coddling their nonsense, though it's tempting to just let the virus thin the herd.

You can't always trust a VPN.

Leaving Islam takes guts, even in North America.

Some companies make even work-from-home jobs utterly shitty.

The trans movement is not like the gay movement, and is actually inimical to it.

"YOU ARE BEING COLONIZED BY SATAN! AN ITALIAN ACTRESS SAYS SO!!!"

The 1999 Woodstock festival was an outbreak of barbarism.

Here are ways to support abortion rights in Texas.

Some people don't deserve redemption.

"These people aren't worth $15 an hour" -- fuck you.

Feminism can't avoid confronting the trans issue.

Priorities, priorities.

Fareed Zakaria is cautiously optimistic about American democracy.

"What is with atheist Tumblr being completely unable to have a single conversation or meme about Islam remain about Islam?"  People need to quit hijacking discussions.

Apparently at least one rape-induced pregnancy has already happened in a California women's prison as the authorities bring male inmates in.

It's being openly said now -- companies that try to end work-from-home will lose employees.  But the deeper problem is that almost everybody hates their jobs.

Solar power is coming into its own, with India, China, and the Middle East in the lead.

This kind of bullshit is part of why so many Americans are ignorant about science.

Detransitioners exist, and people need to hear their stories.

Stay out of the way and let natural selection do its job.

This is not fairness.

Jailed January 6 insurrectionists are whiners.

If you want to know how the wingnutosphere is reacting to the January 6 hearings, this is pretty typical.

Long-term trends in crime are very different from what people think.

"Mother Teresa" was far from the humanitarian she's widely held to be.  Christopher Hitchens's book about her is a must-read, by the way.

Refugees from authoritarian regimes recognize threats to free speech when they seen them.

The "great resignation" proceeds apace, bringing shitty employers to their knees.

Anti-vaxers are willfully-ignorant spoiled brats and deserve no respect.

Yes, telling lies does real harm.

Sorry, I've no sympathy for the kind of asshole who would embrace a pandemic as an opportunity for religious revival.

This is what global warming looks like.

Darwinfish 2 looks at a popular anti-vax lie.  No, it's not vaccinated people who are dying of covid-19.

Some interesting info here on male-female athletic differences.

What were the Confederates fighting for?  Let them tell you in their own words.

This person exists and is deranged.

Do Europeans feel most attached to their country, their region, or Europe as a whole?

More and more women in the UK feel driven away from the left as the latter turns against sex-based rights.  The US left must avoid making the same mistakes.

France's president Macron has no patience with anti-vax bullshit.

These vaccine doses won't go to waste (found via Hackwhackers).

The world's two biggest democracies strengthen cooperation against the biggest fascist regime.

Anime and manga are being threatened by corporate censorship, but even people outside Japan can help fight back.

The Chinese regime doesn't like the media covering the disastrous floods in Henan province.

Let's not reward genocidal fascists with a world-class sports event.  Some fans are bad losers, anyway.

NASA makes a major contribution to food production.

The delta variant is one of the most easily-transmissible diseases there is.  Vaccinated people who get infected usually don't get very sick, but can easily spread it to others.

This is a whole fossil dinosaur, not just a skeleton.

More links at Fair and Unbalanced.

o o o o o

In case you missed it -- this week I posted a forecast of wingnut self-genocide, a collection of mood images, and a video on China and Taiwan.

Video of the day -- China vs Taiwan

China and Taiwan have the same cultural and ethnic roots, and became separate nations only seventy years ago.  So why are they so different?

(SerpentZA lived and traveled in China for over fourteen years and speaks Mandarin well, and his channel has numerous insightful videos from his time there.)

Moods

Self-genocide

Over the last few days, some right-wing leaders in the US have abruptly pivoted to a more pro-vaccine message.  Moscow Mitch, Sean Hannity, and Alabama governor Kay Ivey have been notable examples.  Recently senator Tommy Tuberville and Sarah Huckabee Sanders added their voices (the latter garnished with a steaming pile of liberal-bashing, but still).  And the reason is becoming obvious.

Almost all the people who ever paid attention to the anti-covid-vaccine nonsense in the first place (and to the allied nonsense that downplayed the threat posed by the disease), are their own right-wing followers.  Rejection of the vaccine, like rejection of mask-wearing and of the facts about the lethality of covid-19, have become a mark of right-wing tribal identity.  This is why, throughout the pandemic, most of the states with the highest per-capita covid-19 case loads and death rates have been red states, despite most of those states being thinly populated and thus theoretically less vulnerable to an infectious disease.  Florida, perhaps the most urbanized red state, is being devastated.

The adult (over 18) population of the US is 258 million.  Right now, 155 million US adults (60%) are fully vaccinated, and a further 23 million (9%) have received one shot of the two-shot vaccines.  Those 23 million have some protection against the disease, though not as much as the fully-vaccinated, but the remaining 80 million are totally unprotected.  That 80 million, it's safe to assume, consists mostly of the hard-core right-wing base (there are a few people who cannot be vaccinated for various medical reasons, but the numbers are fairly small).  Consistent with that, 80% of the unvaccinated say they "probably" or "definitely" will never accept the vaccine.

Currently, 99.5% of covid-19 deaths are among the unvaccinated 31% of the adult population.  While some vaccinated people are still getting the disease, it rarely becomes serious or lethal among them.  Crippling, deadly covid-19 is now almost entirely confined to the unvaccinated.

The new delta variant is far more infectious than the original covid-19, and also deadlier since it is killing greater numbers of younger people.  As best we can tell, the vaccines provide the same protection against delta as against the original covid-19 -- if you are vaccinated, you are substantially less likely to get infected, and vastly less likely to become seriously ill or die (this is based on what's going on in the US -- some other countries are using different vaccines which may be less effective than the three being used here, which means that data from those countries is less relevant to our situation).  So it seems safe to assume that the death toll from the oncoming wave of delta-variant infections will continue to be almost entirely among the unvaccinated.

How bad is it going to get?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, in the US there have been 35 million total reported covid-19 cases and 610,000 deaths, a death rate of 1 in 57 (it's likely that the true number of both cases and deaths is higher, but even if both figures are, say, twice as high in reality, the ratio would be about the same).  Since the delta variant kills a higher proportion of the younger adults who contract it, it seems safe to assume the death rate will be substantially higher, perhaps 1 in 40 or even worse.

Given the much greater infectiousness of the delta variant, this analysis projects that it will sweep the entire unvaccinated population of the US in just four months.  CNN's chief medical correspondent concurs that soon Americans will be divided into just two groups -- the vaccinated and the infected.

If we have 80 million delta-variant cases in the next four months, and the death rate is 1 in 40, two million people will die.  In fact, there's reason to think it will be even worse.  My guess at how much deadlier the delta variant will be is probably too conservative.  Measures like lockdowns and mask mandates, which contained covid-19 somewhat during 2020, are unlikely to be re-imposed; and even if they are, the unvaccinated, who mostly downplay the disease, will be unlikely to comply.  A health-care system which was often overwhelmed by 35 million cases spread over a year and a half will be utterly overwhelmed by 80 million cases in four months, so the standard of medical care available will be lower.  And cases will be concentrated in red states and rural areas (since that's where most of the unvaccinated people are), where medical facilities are sparser and health conditions such as smoking and obesity are generally worse than in the cities.  There are too many unknowns to make hard estimates, but it seems reasonable to project that if most of the unvaccinated remain unvaccinated, there will be at least two million further covid-19 deaths in the US before the end of this year, likely far more.

And most of those who die will be voting-age conservatives, since that's the demographic which makes up most unvaccinated adults.  Even in a country as large as the US, two (or three or four) million deaths almost entirely on one side of the political divide will be enough to affect later election outcomes, especially since some states are almost 50-50, and most gerrymandered districts have only narrow Republican majorities.  Now you know why right-wing leaders are suddenly getting worried.  They see and know the reality of the situation, even if the delusional lemmings of their base don't.

Will their warnings turn the tide and persuade the unvaccinated to save themselves?  At the moment it doesn't look that way.  From what I'm seeing on the right-wing blogs and news sites I read, most rank-and-file wingnuts are so deeply committed to the anti-vax / covid-is-overblown narrative that they are brushing off the warnings or even denouncing those who issue them as RINOs.  McConnell's statement drew plenty of right-wing flak.  Hannity has already walked back his own warning.  The one thing that might make a real difference would be a strong pro-vaccine exhortation from Donald Trump himself, but Trump is not known for willingness to admit he was wrong about things, and he currently seems mainly interested in rehashing his claims about the 2020 election being stolen.

The suggestion that an advanced country like the United States might suffer millions of deaths from infectious disease, when the vaccines to prevent it are widely available, may seem like a ludicrous fantasy.  Yet I see no flaw in the logic here, and Republican leaders' rare willingness to challenge their base's delusions suggests that they too perceive the magnitude of the danger.  By far the worst of this pandemic is probably still ahead of us.

It will be the greatest mass suicide in history, a self-genocide.  The wingnut politicians and media con men who led their followers into this disaster make Jim Jones look like an amateur.

Link round-up for 25 July 2021

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

o o o o o

Speak carefully when listing your medications.

It's cool what you can accomplish with a car and a bit of programming knowledge.

Life -- we're doing it wrong.

Extremely unambitious alien invaders here.

New one-minute version of Titanic here, with chinchillas.

Crook gets pwned, big time.

Experience changes one's view of problems.

Best period drama ever.

Lazy serfs are wrecking the medieval economy.

What is corn on the cob used for?

This would be a valid IQ test.

No you're right's!

Dashboard camera pwns insurance scammer.

These people know how to paint houses.

Stupidest question ever.

Here's why dogs are happier.

Kids are cute.

Looks like the start of a great novel.

Feed him and get a nose ride.

It's still a #$@!%* planet, you turkeys.

There is such a thing as a good job.

Oregon finds a large, colorful fish (found via Miss Cellania).

Here's how to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome.

I'd actually prefer the "vegan ice cream".

This is not poetry.

Apparently Instagram is censoring content -- here's a work-around.

Pictures here of the Shah Cheragh mosque in Shiraz, Iran.

We know a lot more about extinct animals than you'd think.

It's remarkable what you can make by hand when you know how.

What should replace religion?

This animal exists.

Cool rocks.

Here's how we know ancient Egypt didn't trade with the Americas.

This scary tale of hospital abuse has been making the rounds -- don't be fooled.

"Only a cat."

Jeff Bezos's 11-minute flight got slightly closer to space than Branson did, and the launch at least provided some entertainment value.

The pronoun people can't even keep track of their own nonsense.

This is social anxiety.

There's no basis for religious exemptions from vaccination.

What would Orwell think of smartphones?  Almost anyone can now use yours to track you.  I don't have one and never will.

The internet is turning into shit.  Social media now actively sabotage interpersonal connections.

Don't turn non-work into a job.

"This isn’t even funny. This is just sad."

The Frito-Lay strike has ended in a win for the workers.

Health-care workers describe the nightmare of dealing with covid-denialist idiots.  They're pretty much unreachable, so we might as well make the best of it, aside from trying to save the kids.  The delta variant is far more infectious, and extrapolating the UK's experience to US conditions, "in about 4 months the delta variant will have ripped through virtually the entire unvaccinated US population".  The majority of the death toll from this pandemic could still be ahead of us.  Moscow Mitch has suddenly realized that letting Republican voters get mowed down isn't good for the party, but wingnuttia at large is unimpressed (read the comments too).

I haven't tried this, but it could be useful for internet reading.

Ideology leads to misunderstanding of history.

Blogger Da-AL discusses her own views of -- and personal experience with -- abortion.

Even on its own terms, religion is rubbish.

If you mock your kid's enthusiasms, don't be surprised if they stop opening up to you.

The law and police aren't geared for handling interactions with autistic people, often with deadly results (podcast with transcript).

Priorities, priorities.

"Fuck you and your lies!"

69% of men and 80% of women say work-from-home options are a top priority when seeking a new job.

A talk-radio host who told listeners not to get the covid-19 vaccine is changing his tune now that he's caught the disease.  Sorry, but anybody who takes medical advice from talk radio isn't much loss to the gene pool.  The Rude Pundit calls out their bullshit, and responds to critics.

Only one thing hasn't changed.

How do fundies deal with translating the Bible?

Cancel culture exists.  Including here in Oregon.

Stealing is OK as long as it's a huge amount.

The cruelty is the point with anti-abortion laws.

Sorry, some people deserve to be insulted.

Yet another Catholic diocese files for bankruptcy to escape paying compensation to molestation victims.

Counterweight is a liberal activist group fighting back against cancel culture and totalitarian "woke" hysteria.  Interesting case stories here of specific people they've helped.  These interviews with Steven Pinker and Sam Harris are also worth watching.

Calls for a general strike on October 15 are circulating on Tumblr.  Don't get suckered.

CNBC lists the ten worst US states to live in.  Not many surprises.

Every book lover should resist Amazon's growing domination of the market.

Earth-Bound Misfit is through with the NRA and suggests a better alternative.

Restaurant workers face shitty pay, shitty bosses, and shitty customers -- and now they have options.

The California prison system knows full well that moving hundreds of male inmates into women's prisons will lead to a wave of rapes and pregnancies -- and they're evidently just going to let it happen.

Never pay anything on debts you don't owe.

Murderously-lethal right-wing nonsense has religious roots.

Smoke from fires here in the western US is causing haze as far away as New York.  Here's what the smoke patterns look like.

Know the reality of the new laws on critical race theory.

New figures here on the rapid decline of US Christianity, especially among Latinos.

Just a single bitcoin "mining" operation is generating hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide and dangerously warming a glacial lake (found via Cop Car).

This is not freedom.  And this is not justice.

Another witness to the Wi Spa incident speaks out.  Discussion thread here on the "it didn't happen" bullshit.  Watch for shifting goalposts.  Here's some info on normal practices at Korean spas.

Update:  Several people are now saying that this guy is the man who was in the women's area at the spa.  Background info on him here, including his own (ambiguous) statements about whether he was the one there or not.  Discussion here and here and here.

We'll probably never know covid-19's true death toll among American Indians, but it was high.

It is madness to proceed with the Olympics under these conditions.  Most people in Japan agree.

"Yes, but now hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me I've realised that this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever."

Introduced predators such as stoats are a serious problem in New Zealand.

Photos here from the severe floods in western Europe.

A hero of free expression has died.

France has stupid people too -- just not as many as we do.

The Cuban regime is harassing and arresting journalists, artists, and anyone else who gets out of line (found via Hackwhackers).

Two years after Trump's betrayal, the Kurds -- including women -- are still fighting back.

As the Taliban regain control in Afghanistan, they're demanding that unmarried women and girls be handed over for forced marriage.

The House is taking action to save Afghans who helped the US.

Islam is profoundly misogynistic, despite the propaganda spouted by apologists.

Here's what happened when citizens in New Delhi protested about water shortages.

India's true covid-19 death toll is probably around five million, far higher than the official figure.

Two-thirds of Taiwanese people now self-identify purely as Taiwanese, not as Chinese at all.  Forget "one China" -- Taiwan is a separate nation, and has been for decades.

The rise of brain-machine integration will necessitate formalization of "neuro-rights" to protect the integrity of the individual mind (found via Cop Car).

More links at Fair and Unbalanced.

o o o o o

In case you missed it -- this week I posted some more improved words, a call-out on strikes and the media, and a video on China's "lying flat" rebellion.

[Image at top:  the planet Pluto, a planetary object of unimpeachable planethood]