16 January 2022

Link round-up for 16 January 2022

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

o o o o o

Horse bones!

A dastardly attack.

I came, I saw, I farted.

Let God's tech support identify the problem.

So that's what happened to Clippy.

Anti-vaxers have a new covid-19 "treatment" to try (found via Earth-Bound Misfit).  More here.

That could have been worded better.

A woman with many cats challenges them with an even greater number of fans.

Neglecting the needs of elephants has unfortunate consequences.

Here's why gays make better neighbors than religious nuts.

Titanic passengers demand their freedumb (found via Miss Cellania).

Gadgetry fixation ruins everything (found via Calvin).

People waited in line seven hours to buy this (found via Cas d'intérêt).  Let's hope voting inspires similar dedication.

This person exists.

These people exist.

These abominations exist.

See a silicone color mixer at work.

Hear one of the greatest movie songs ever in 25 languages.

Some interesting observations on costume design here.

Take in an aerial view of Rome -- in 360 CE.

Things that look close together in the sky usually aren't.

This is Manarola in northern Italy.

France's president Macron deals with les non-vaccinés emmerdants with tough love and tough use of the French language.

Learn how the Intangible Sludge took over American movies.

Stay ad-free, stay free.

Old photos remind us of what the recent past was really like.

Attributing UFOs to aliens is a secular version of the "God of the gaps" fallacy.

The "Amazon smile" charitable-donation system may not be entirely on the level.

Pregnant women vaccinated against covid-19 pass on some immunity to their newborns.

2021 was a year of progress for sex workers' rights in the US.

"Bridging programs" seek to defuse US political polarization, not by changing minds but by reducing hatred and risks of violence.

Students in Oakland CA have started a petition demanding that schools return to remote learning unless they can be made genuinely safe from covid-19.

This woman escaped a ghastly fundamentalist family environment.

When a website is this tiresome to visit, why even bother?

Two compounds found in hemp, already known to be safe in humans, show promise in fighting covid-19 (found via Mock Paper Scissors).

Blogger Wondering Eagle has an open letter to anti-vax evangelicals.

I am so, so glad I got out of academia.

Republican senator Tom Cotton is pushing a bill to stop the transfer of male inmates into women's prisons (discussion here).  If Republicans are the only ones willing to fight against this horrific, rape-enabling policy, Democrats shouldn't be surprised when they lose growing numbers of women voters.

This tweet packs a lot of truth.

Maybe anti-vaxers really are just stupid assholes.

In a cold and uncaring society that sees people merely as producers and consumers, fewer people are choosing to have children (found via Miss Cellania).  The pandemic is the last straw.

"Quitting is not failure.  It is the admission that I can no longer do something."

Here are some tips on handling depression and suicide prevention.

Green Eagle is back with another huge round-up of wingnut lunacy.

Get vaccinated, dammit (found via Earth-Bound Misfit).

Sex trafficking exists, but alarmists vastly exaggerate the scale of the problem.

NYT executives are shitty, hypocritical union-busters.

Break free from the fetishization of victimhood and grievance (interesting observation about Cuba as well).

A poll of US voters on autocracy gives a mixed bag of results:  75% agree that it's important to protect the rights of protesters, but 64% want to "eliminate troublemakers"; 80% say women should not be expected to be submissive to their husbands; 56% don't want to see more protests for minority rights and 54% value law and order above civil rights, but 58% admire those who challenge "the law and the majority's view" by protesting; 66% say we need "free thinkers who..... defy traditional ways"; most encouragingly of all, 86% agree that "everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else", and 81% that there is no one right way to live life.

Here's a possible explanation for Kyrsten Sinema's behavior.

We need to re-think local control of education.

Guidance here on buying and using N95 masks, including a warning about counterfeits.

Arrogant narcissism makes enemies.

A relative of Holocaust victims responds to an anti-vax congressman's stupid Nazi analogy (found via Hackwhackers).

Efforts to ban abortion are hypocritical and dangerous.

Extremism and intolerance often turn people against the cause the extremists are supporting.

Infection with the common cold can confer some limited protection against covid-19 (the two viruses are related, though not closely).

New Jersey acts to protect abortion rights; Florida attacks them.

The Loudoun county rapist has been sentenced.  The school officials who covered up the rapes and the media assholes who downplayed the story are, unfortunately, not likely to suffer any serious consequences.

Don't fetishize bipartisanship.

Omicron is hitting the US harder than Europe, largely due to our lower vaccination rate.

A new low-cost vaccine from Texas should be a game-changer for lower-income countries.

Mr Menno and a "woman of no importance" respond to Boy George's "goddess energy" nonsense.

Other Western countries don't coddle anti-vaxers like the US does.

In eastern Europe, too, religious nuts and covid-19 super-spreader events go together.

Iran's failed theocratic regime tries to suppress news reporting on the embarrassing problem of mass poverty.

Religion strikes again:  in India, millions cram together in disregard of covid-19 precautions for a Hindu festival which will inevitably become a super-spreader event.

In China, 44% of young women and 25% of young men don't plan to get married.  Even among the married, many don't plan to have children.

The Chinese regime tolerates no dissent on its policy of suppressing minority languages.

Reminiscent of the Taliban and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the Chinese regime is systematically destroying culturally-important Tibetan structures, often forcing Tibetan monks and civilians to watch.

More links at Perfect Number, Fair and Unbalanced, and The Honest Courtesan.

o o o o o

My only substantive post this week was on signs that the US is less politically polarized than it seems (got quite a few intelligent comments on this one); there were also a couple of updates on my eye problems.

5 Comments:

Blogger SickoRicko said...

I loved the woman with too many cats! / I liked the explanation of the color red in the deep ocean. However, I do not consider those creatures to be abominations. / Very fascinating aerial view of reconstructed Rome. / And, thank you very much for the links to my blog!

16 January, 2022 11:09  
Blogger Mary Kirkland said...

I know so many people with Covid right now. It seems to be hitting my neighborhood pretty bad. I've had it for 3 weeks and I'm vaccinated. I wonder how much worse it would have been had I not been vaccinated.

I like looking at old pictures. I have a bunch of old photo albums from my mom and grandparents. They are great to look at.

16 January, 2022 12:38  
Blogger jenny_o said...

Sorry to read about your eye problems and painful treatment, Infidel. I'm just getting caught up. I hope things improve steadily.

I love the sign "we're revolting" on the back of the truck in the meme. You can say that again :)

16 January, 2022 17:28  
Anonymous Dinah said...

Thinking of prisons - the trans agenda is madness. I do not care if the men pretending to be women have had surgery or not.

In the context of prisons it's the hole that matters.

Women have a hole - their vagina, which men want to penetrate with their penis - either consensually, transactionally, or by force.

Bluntly, the reason we have men's & women's prisons is to keep the men away from the holes.

17 January, 2022 11:40  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Ricko: She has a lot of videos of "challenges" with her numerous long-suffering cats. And that virtual re-build of ancient Rome is a mammoth project. I'm glad someone put in the effort of undertaking it.

Thanks for your prolific posts.

Mary K: The experts are saying omicron is so infectious that pretty much everyone will get it at some point. However, vaccination makes a huge difference to how severe the disease is. Most of the hospitalizations and deaths are still among the unvaccinated.

Jenny_o: The blurred vision is mostly gone now; I'll have to wait until Friday for the final word on how successful the retina repairs were.

Dinah: Not the terminology I would have chosen, but that's basically it. We're already seeing the start of a proliferation of pregnancies among the victims of this insane new policy.

18 January, 2022 02:45  

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