26 June 2022

Link round-up for 26 June 2022

Just think -- we could have had her making those three Supreme Court picks, and now the Court would be 6-3 the other way and we wouldn't even be talking about Roe v Wade being in danger.  But some of the progs just couldn't stomach voting for a moderate centrist, so Trump got in -- and here we are.

o o o o o

Got almost enough bubbles here.

Orwell's birthday?  Big Cat is watching you.

Die, vile monster, die!

Looks like the toads are grumpy.

Every prey animal must be alert for the approach of predators (found via Hackwhackers).

Starting to get hot in the southwest.

See (sort of) the Hong Kong sky.  You're looking straight up.

Face time!

Hippo shows lions who's boss.

He was cosplaying the Holy Spirit.

Meet the meat.

This is how they put logos on things.

The character of Franklin in Peanuts was something of a cultural milestone.

If you've been wondering why the new Lightyear movie is turkeying out so badly, here's a detailed review.

In Norway, the word "Texas" is now slang for "crazy".

Even in June, you can get all the skull décor you want.

Simplify, simplify.....

What would you like to drink?

Watch some trains in Osaka.

Nope nope nope nope.....

See the zoetrope effect.

Blogger Daal finishes writing a novel and throws out some snippets of popular culture.

Carol Seidl is back in France, taking time to smell the flowers.

This is the size of North America compared to Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

Cave species exemplify how evolution can mean loss of complexity.

Space bubbles can help us defeat global warming.

Woketardia demands that you use ever-changing fake language.

If Elon Musk ever starts a Mars colony, don't go there.

Stand fast against the pants apocalypse.

Procrastinating Donkey has some tips on the recent blog commenting problems, plus some children who need your prayers.

Google search is being shittyized.  Use something else.

When politics becomes identity, goals corrode into their own opposites.

This man used phones to clear traffic jams in his neighborhood.

The spirit of Wormtongue lives.

After a series of rapes by Lyft drivers, the company is paying out a $25,000,000 settlement -- to shareholders, not victims.

Political must-read of the week:  the Democrats are prioritizing the tiny "woke" fringe over tens of millions of mainstream black and Hispanic voters, a huge blunder that "could lead to Republican dominance for a generation".  Worthwhile discussion here.

Political must-watch video of the week:  Democrats need to remember whose side they're on.

Giuliani mistook a ginger mint for a "USB port".

Never forget -- without these guys, cities couldn't exist.

This is an injustice.

"Why do I concealed carry?"

Voting isn't enough, but.....

Race-consciousness has long been the enemy's most effective tool for dividing workers against each other; now it's being used to divide defenders of abortion rights.

Patients getting opioids for pain are not a significant factor in opioid overdose deaths.

The LGBTQIXYZWTF+ "community" now increasingly resembles a puritanical religious cult.

The Postal Service can help local businesses fight back against Amazon.

Public confidence in the Supreme Court has fallen to the lowest level ever -- and that was before the Roe ruling was announced.

The governor of Massachusetts takes action.

A Republican serving on the January 6 committee has received a death threat to his entire family.

In this report on FINA's decision to exclude most men from women's competitive swimming, the real point of interest is the comments thread.  Regular people still have basic common sense.

The modern workplace is so shitty that even bosses want to quit.

Annie Asks You reviews current developments on gun rights.

Medical science needs to pay more attention to biological differences between men and women.

Here's how left-wing groups get ruined by wokeness and identity politics, and what to do about it.

The Justice Department is coming after participants in the wingnut 2020 fake-elector conspiracy.

Amazon will soon face a shortage of workers, at least in parts of the US.

It turns out racism and sexism are bad for business.

Darwinfish 2 is following the January 6 hearings (but here in Portland we did have months of real rioting, not merely "a couple of protests").  58% of Americans now say Trump should be criminally charged, up only a little from 52% before the hearings -- but given how small the TV viewership has been, it will probably take time for information to seep into the mass public mind.

As American society grows more secular, the Supreme Court is getting more and more out of step.  It has now been captured by a theocratic cabal out of the Dark Ages.

Urban voters of all races support a wide range of policies to suppress crime, including both "leftist" approaches like stronger gun control and "rightist" approaches like harsher punishments.  This particular survey is of voters in Baltimore, but it's probably typical.

"Some patients broke down and could not speak through their sobbing."

This tweet exists.

The spirit of Fred Phelps lives on.

The evidence against wingnut "stolen election" claims is overwhelming.

Info here on the legal status of abortion in each state after the end of Roe.

"Fat acceptance" and "body positivity" are a serious threat to women's health.

Totalitarianism destroys even its defenders.

Women can use democracy to defend abortion rights, but it's going to take focus.

I guess Trumpanzees aren't real big on reading books.

More here on Hillary Clinton's recent interview and how extremism is leading the Democrats toward defeat.

Interesting forum discussion here on the overturning of Roe.

Two-thirds of US teenagers who go to church drop out when they reach adulthood.

Jonah Goldberg thinks that if the Republicans take Congress this year, they'll just mess up and lose power fairly quickly.

The supportive mother of a lesbian student discusses fighting back against gender indoctrination in schools.

Foreign leaders react to the Supreme Court's blow against US abortion rights.

See where Europe's highest and lowest murder rates are.  Interesting that four of the five lowest-murder regions are all in the same country.

The British National Health Service faces a fierce backlash for purging the word "woman" from documents about pregnancy.

Despite all the threats and abuse aimed at JK Rowling, she speaks for the majority in the UK.

This woman did nothing wrong.

This is indoctrination, not education.

Though Le Pen lost France's presidential election in April, her party just won 15% of the seats in the national legislature.  Far-left parties also made strong gains.

A US woman in Malta had to be airlifted to Spain to terminate a non-viable pregnancy, due to Malta's strict abortion law.

NATO must stand by Lithuania, now being menaced by Russia for its role in enforcing sanctions.

Russia is digging in for a long war of attrition in Ukraine.

An eleven-year-old rape victim in Brazil has been banned from getting an abortion.

China's banking system is riddled with corruption and embezzlement, potentially wiping out the savings of millions.

More links at Miss Cellania.

My own posts this week: toddler-tantrum culture, an image round-up, and the Texas Republican platform.

o o o o o

Well, drat.  It's not even July yet and we're supposed to get our first hundred-degree day today.  This is Portland, dammit -- I was hoping for another week of rain.

19 Comments:

Blogger CAS said...

Good opener! I'm not usually a fan of "I told you so" but this is an important lesson that many people need to hear.

26 June, 2022 02:53  
Blogger bluzdude said...

I considered adding a modifier, like "Portland notwithstanding" because Portland's situation was far outside the norm that went on in the rest of the country. I know that there were no special Riot Zones in Baltimore. (We already had a full-scale riot in the last 10 years, which we hope is the last.)

I probably should have listened to my original instinct.

26 June, 2022 08:51  
Blogger SickoRicko said...

I, too, appreciated the paragraph under the image. As for everything else: I was mostly intrigued by the TikTok movies. However, Charles Shultz' introduction of Franklin moved me the most.

26 June, 2022 10:42  
Blogger Martha said...

Ooooh....good opening! Another great collection of links. "An eleven-year-old rape victim in Brazil has been banned from getting an abortion." I don't even know what to say about something that horrifying.

26 June, 2022 12:14  
Blogger Mike said...

The Zoetrope Effect on Vinyl makes me want to dig out my turntable. I wonder if this will become a thing with more Zoetrope platters.

26 June, 2022 15:04  
Anonymous NickM said...

Your comment on Hilary is interesting. I'm English and have never understood the sheer vileness of the hatred and inchoate rage the woman generates in some quarters. Is it because she wears pants - a lot? ;-)

But I do hope your comment about her as POTUS stuffing the SCOTUS the other way was meant with more than a hint of bitter irony because I was astonished when I first learned the nature and powers of that organisation.

On the subject of JK Rowling... Well, it's envy really. She's very wealthy, deeply loved, has a compelling back-story and she's also a life-long Labour supporter. So, the woke nutters of the left obviously hate her. Also on the gender identity front she's JK not Joanne because when she first sent-off the "Harry Potter" manuscripts to various publishers she thought she'd be taken more seriously if it wasn't obvious she was a woman.

27 June, 2022 03:35  
Anonymous NickM said...

Update on JKR,

From wikipedia: "the idea for the characters of Harry Potter came to her while she waited on a delayed train"

Oddly enough, many years before that another woman was waiting for a delayed train. She already had the character formed but was struggling for a name. That woman was Agatha Christie and the Station was in South Manchester (I go through it a lot). Marple station.

So some good has come from the UK's mediocre railways over the decades.

27 June, 2022 03:41  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A couple nitpicks about "body acceptance". First, detox diets are woo, based on the whole "toxins everywhere and my liver and kidneys do NOTHING! so I need to detoxify with lemon juice and cayenne pepper and clearly such a medical condition wouldn't need actual doctors because they just want to make money, so that's $600 for this homeopathic remedy right?". They are NOT the same as weight loss.

Secondly, in, Joe Rogan is antivax?

Yeah, fuck "alternative medicine" and it's false promises.

27 June, 2022 07:23  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I should point out that to DLC Dems, "extremism" is things like "I want a job, not more jobs in China." On the other hand, something like "Gasp! You said 'rule of thumb'?" or anti-Israel stuff is totally fine because it doesn't cost the donor class money.

They also simp for China, and have since the 90s.

My quick reminder that tankies are detestable because they prop up despots.

I will tell you, if she'd bothered to actually campaign in the Great Lakes region, she'd be better off, but Robbie Mook was convinced Dixieland would turn blue. But the Democrats refuse to fire bad consultants.

27 June, 2022 07:31  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

CAS: In this case, I think "I told you so" is more than justified.

Bluzdude: It's been a disaster. Years ago a friend from Texas told me Portland had the most vibrant downtown he had ever seen, but it's dying now. Retail businesses are closing and moving out because they can't cope with all the window-smashing and looting. Companies with offices there are moving out because their employees don't feel safe (even now). I will never forgive the left as a whole for trying to minimize and downplay the riots. And I've heard of similar in other cities.

Ricko: I didn't know that about Franklin at all. It's easy to forget how recently a character like that would have been controversial.

Martha: Brazil's present can be our future -- if the religionists keep gaining ground in the government. Amazing that such horrors can still exist in the 21st century.

Mike: It's an odd effect. I imagine the novelty soon wears off, though.

27 June, 2022 07:50  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

NickM: I never understood the personal-unlikability thing about Hillary. Yes, I know some people object to her vote on the Iraq war and centrist views generally, but every politician has something about them for an ideological purist to object to. As for personality, I don't see anything particularly unlikable about her, and anyway, this is politics, not dating.

I'm sure that's true about Rowling. Also, the fact that she has too much money and personal popularity to be cancelable -- that is, she's independently powerful. Totalitarian ideologies hate any independent locus of power. They need to be able to dictate to everyone.

I guess we should be glad Christie wasn't looking at one of these signs when she was dealing with that problem.

27 June, 2022 07:57  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Anon: There are lots of bullshit diets out there, first and foremost the low-carb scams. But there are legitimate ways of losing weight, and telling people it's OK to stay fat is simply lying to them, to their detriment.

There are few things I know less about, or care less about, than Joe Rogan.

In hindsight it would clearly have been better to campaign more in the Great Lakes states, which were lost by such small margins. Unfortunately that very fact made it easy to mistake those states as being "in the bag". There was also the more general problem of underestimating Trump's appeal, and overconfidence generally. I doubt those would be repeated today.

27 June, 2022 08:03  
Blogger Daal said...

what a sad week... heartbreaking, the story about the woman who murdered her dad... funny coupled with one that shows lowest murder rates are in UK, tho maybe not funny in that the ones who're murdered hopefully more often deserve it? nowhere in the article does it say that her dad was found innocent...

27 June, 2022 12:51  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Based on the story, he was a chronic sexual abuser. He deserved death.

Britain has long been one of the world's most crime-free societies. Even so, it does have some violent and abusive people.

27 June, 2022 13:51  
Blogger Daal said...

Jack the Ripper...

27 June, 2022 15:50  
Anonymous NickM said...

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”

- Gandalf, Fellowship of the Ring.

What that woman did was understandable but that doesn't make it right. Or good. We need a better law enforcement and judicial system but for good or ill that was vigilantism.

Heh, I've just hit a milestone on a big project so I'm saying that. Earlier today I was full-on "lock and load" for anyone involved in a couple of CMS providers. I was thinking very dark thoughts which involved remote sheds, duct tape and Breville sandwich toasters.

27 June, 2022 17:17  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Daal: Well, he didn't actually kill people, but it was almost as bad.

NickM: No, it was right. And good. After all those years of sexual abuse, he deserved it. He could never have gotten justice in the UK court system -- they don't even have the death penalty.

27 June, 2022 23:11  
Blogger Daal said...

it was just a terrible about UK murderers not worth elaborating on

28 June, 2022 15:55  
Blogger yellowdoggranny said...

I listened to her and believed her..sigh*

29 June, 2022 20:14  

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