Link round-up for 24 September 2023

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

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Animals are silly.

He's trying to carry all his groceries home in one trip.

This wasp nest removal did not go well.

Fairy tales get modern.

See some signs of the times.

Looks like Barbie's car needed a tow.

Sometimes, being able to jump fast is useful.

This home has a fearsome guardian.

Time to take your pun-ishment.

Don't let the cat out.

He'll help you park.

Drunk driving is a bad idea for anyone.

The ringbearer has failed the quest.

He exercises by washing clothes.

Not sure what this guy is doing.

Why was Prawo Jazdy such a bad driver?

Tired of pink?  Lady M has some dark Barbies.

Slow and steady wins the race.

There's no question which Star Trek show had the best costumes.

Johnny Profane of AutisticAF blog has a gallery of his art posted.  More here.

French-Arab writer and cartoonist Riad Sattouf pokes fun at both cultures, with a serious edge.

Good discussion here of the film Labyrinth.

Drive through Dutch tulip fields.

Cut them free.

The kids seem to like her.

Ridiculously oversized cars present a real danger to pedestrians.

Some tips here on getting more blog traffic.  This is a right-wing blog, but equivalent tactics would presumably work just as well for anyone.

If your phone looks like this, you have a problem.

Do not mess with people's mobility devices.  This is seriously shitty behavior and people who do it deserve whatever they get.

Apparently this was an attempted car theft.  It did not go well.

Here's how diamonds form -- and sometimes acquire color.

This is what happens when people try to make their delusions real.

Impressive astronomy photos here.

"Inverse vaccines" show promise for treating autoimmune diseases.  Arthritis is an autoimmune disease -- if this had been available twenty years ago it would have changed my life.

Israel is making smart use of solar power.

Defend science and rationality against the fanatics, on every front.

What if you could experience the lives of other people and animals?

Evil is boring and unimaginative compared to good.

We understand them; they don't understand us.

Here's a new scam to watch out for.

Amazon plans to add ads on its Prime Video service, and customers aren't happy.

Some resources here for parents for dealing with trans ideology and indoctrination.

If your landlord is allowing code violations, contact enforcement.  In some cases they can't act until you do.

A substantial majority of Americans support the UAW and SAG-AFTRA-WGA strikes.

Just imagine if they had said this about any other group.  We have a real problem here.

Christianity is dangerous to women.

Bosses have always been shit.

He demands that others reinforce his delusions.

Hinduism and Buddhism are just as hypocritical as other religions.

The Seattle cop recorded mocking the death of a woman hit by a police car tries to defend his behavior.

If you see a violation of the separation of church and state, it's well worthwhile to report it (post includes links for doing so).

Humor is a weapon against repressive ideology.

The NFT scam seems to have run its course.

Planned Parenthood has resumed abortion services in Wisconsin.

Tuberville's antics benefit mainly Putin.

Gavin Newsom just did something sane.  Does it mean anything?

Here's a disgusting example of police abuse of power in Alabama.

Elon Musk crossed a red line by meddling in the Ukraine war in Putin's favor.  He has too much power and it needs to be taken away from him.

A Nebraska woman has been sentenced to two years in prison for providing abortion pills to her daughter.  The daughter also got jail time.

"I feel horrible for the gay people who have fought so hard for acceptance only to have it ruined in a few years by spicy straights."

Biden will join the UAW picket line on Tuesday, probably the first US president ever to do this.  Here's the current status of the strike.

There's a claim circulating on the wingnutosphere that the CDC admitted that most reported covid deaths aren't actually caused by covid.  This is not true.

Abortion continues to be a vote-losing issue for Republicans.  But the religio-nutballs are doubling down, now even condemning Trump for challenging forced-birth mania.

Why do the police arrest protesters who target the guilty instead of arresting the snotty arrogant jackasses who harass innocent bystanders by blocking traffic on ordinary roads?

Understaffing is straining pharmacies to the limit.

Children are very imaginative, but imagination isn't reality.

The Catholic Church has long stood determinedly against democracy, individualism, and modernity.

Forced-birthers in Poland have developed a new tool for reducing women to breeding stock.  No doubt it will soon be adopted by the like-minded in the US.

Bernie Sanders is advancing a bipartisan bill to improve access to health care.

This is how an ethical organization behaves.  When a leader is credibly accused of sexual abuse, he's out -- no minimizing, no excuse-making.  This is what our political parties, and many other groups, need to learn.

House Republicans want to defund everything that actually helps Americans.

Pennsylvania high-schoolers walk out to protest boys being allowed to use the girls' bathrooms.

Anti-vaxism is a cynical scam to energize and rally tens of millions of deluded people -- with the sacrifice of a few hundred thousand of their number being acceptable collateral damage.

For the first time since the early 1980s, more people are leaving Oregon than moving to it.  The state's population actually shrank in 2022.

The fundies who make up the Republican base won't support a Hindu candidate.  But their grip on the party may be weakening.

Working from home full-time can reduce your carbon footprint by more than half.  All return-to-office mandates should be viewed as premeditated efforts to worsen global warming.

In San Francisco, a mob of violent thugs attacked a feminist conference and arts event, assaulting attendees and hotel employees.

Republican appeasers want the US to abandon Ukraine to conquest and slaughter by Putin's gangster-regime.

Restaurants in Oakland CA are facing extinction because customers are too afraid of crime to go there.

California's policy of putting male criminals in women's prisons is a predictable disaster.

Trump used classified documents as notepaper and told his secretary to lie to the FBI about what he had kept.  More details here.

In West Virginia, prison inmates are charged money to read books.

Biden's prescription-drug plan is popular with voters and will make medications more available to those who need them, but Republicans are still trying to get rid of it.

Union voters will be essential next year.

It's the trans movement, not their opponents, who are dangerous extremists.

Moderate House Republicans are considering working with moderate Democrats to circumvent the rabid nutballs and avoid a government shutdown -- which is what they damn well should have been doing all along.  A legislator's duty is to the country and the Constitution, not to a political party, and certainly not to this jackass.  The godawful mess in the House has at least one Republican member missing Pelosi.  What the MSM are hardly reporting is that all McCarthy's effort to work out a compromise with the wingnuts is a waste of time because the resulting abomination would be DOA with the Senate and Biden anyway.  Only a bipartisan approach can stop a shutdown.

Urban Curmudgeon blog is impressed with Biden, less so with Harris.  However, she is popular with an important voting bloc.

Landlords don't "provide" housing -- they hold it hostage.  In this case, government action delivered a real solution.

Photos here from the 1MillionMarch4Children protests in cities across Canada.  Discussion here.  Eva Kurilova reports from Calgary.

Scotland has a special police unit to harass and torment people who express opinions the ruling party doesn't approve of.

A sexual assault nurse examiner describes the horrors of her job (very disturbing).

British public opinion is moving to the left on social issues, including gay rights, but resistance to trans ideology is growing.

They used to set bulls' horns on fire.

Israelis refuse to give up on democracy.

In Mexico, a man who was expelled from the women's restroom in a culturally-significant theater incited a mob attack which trashed and vandalized the venue.

Brazil's president Lula has fought for democracy at home, but coddles dictator Putin and his Ukraine invasion.

The Brazilian Supreme Court has delivered a major win for indigenous land rights.

Ukraine is giving us a lot for a little.

Russia's war effort is a mess, with the regime using extreme measures to silence dissenters at home.  Some Russian soldiers are killing their own comrades in exchange for cash and a chance to escape Russia.

One year after the murder of Mahsa Amini, Iranians have not given up.

In North Korea, entire families have been committing suicide together, often leaving notes condemning the regime (found via Earth-Bound Misfit).

The Chinese regime throws its usual toddler tantrum after Germany's foreign minister mentions the obvious fact that Xi is a dictator.

Start-ups and investment are steeply declining in China as its economy continues to slow down.  Foreign investors, too, have pulled out almost two hundred billion dollars from China since 2021.

Chinese young people use a variety of strategies to escape participation in the brutal economy.

Even the MSM are starting to acknowledge reality -- China under its current regime is an implacable enemy and its downfall is necessary for peace and democracy.

Women in Rwanda, including rape victims, have been imprisoned for years for having abortions.

More links at Fair and Unbalanced, Elder of Ziyon, and WAHF.

My own posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, do believers really believe?, and absolute evil.

If any links in this round-up are paywalled or require a log-in to view, please let me know so I can avoid linking to that site in the future.

To suggest an item for inclusion in the next link round-up, you can use the e-mail address on the left in my profile, or if you don't want to use e-mail, leave it in a comment to the previous link round-up.

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Publish Epstein's client list!
Publish the Nashville shooter's manifesto!
Televise the Trump trials!
Turn over all the rocks and let us see the hideous things beneath.

Image at top made by Pliny.