Link round-up for 3 September 2023

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

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It's fun when cartoon animals panic.

Shaving your armpits too smooth can be a bit dangerous (Japanese commercial).

Don't steal this bicycle.

The Chinese have invented a wanking machine (NSFW, I guess).

The truck successfully pulled down the tree.

Traveling back in time to change history may be futile.

You have been warned.

Some uses here for those cardboard tube things at the center of toilet paper rolls.

And just like that, it became an off-road vehicle.

There's a man around here somewhere -- if we look hard enough we'll find him.

This dress weighs fourteen pounds and may attract vampires.

Some people should just stay away from vehicles (last item is a little gruesome).

He really wants a fish.

It sure looks like a doll to me.

That's a lot of cats.

Your yellow never left.

This person exists, and will soon be poor.

I didn't know ordering pizza was this difficult.

"Burning Man" looks like a fizzle.

Some people are forgetting how actual art works.

Some people are forgetting how actual friends work.

Nice design -- hope it has an elevator, though.

Car colors get duller, year by year.

The Russian regime doesn't want its people to see Oppenheimer or Barbie.

It's never too early to start getting stuff for Halloween.  Mini items here.

This is a letter from a soldier to his father (click for full size).

Building a house without modern equipment is a hell of a lot of work.

Here's what a Blue Angels pilot sees.

This is all around you among the trees.

Overall, China is doing more than the US to fight global warming.  Why wouldn't they?  Even an evil regime wants the world, and thus the country it rules, to survive.

Here's what we currently know about the new covid variants Pirola and Eris.  Fauci says the current surge won't get as bad as the pandemic, because most Americans have some residual immunity from earlier vaccinations or infections.

Stem-cell therapy is bringing dramatic results in treating some forms of vision loss.

It shouldn't be necessary to say this, but humans aren't mushrooms.

Interest in "AI" is already declining (lots of links to examples).  Much more here.

Someday this thing will cut somebody's head off.

The mugshots just keep coming.

The movie will have an appropriate special guest star.

It's time to form an onion.

Hollywood management refuses to settle the SAG-AFTRA-WGA strike because of the precedent it would set.

These people exist.

Telling someone to "calm down" can be selfish.

Shopping has become a miserable experience, largely because of understaffed stores.

The Victorian era was full of disease and hypocrisy.

These jackasses are terminally narcissistic.

Research settlements in Antarctica have a sexual abuse problem.

At least on the issues polled here, most voters prefer Democratic priorities.

Education has become a political battleground -- here are some of the issues.

American society imposes degradation on the poor.

The parasite class has been feeding us the same bullshit for quite a while.

A popular San Francisco restaurant has closed because crime in the vicinity makes it too unsafe for customers to go there.

Must-read link of the week:  The grassroots right and left have many grievances in common, raising the possibility of a true populist coalition in the post-Trump, post-culture-war era -- if we all can just ignore the yelling and screaming ideologists and politicians desperately trying to preserve polarization and keep us divided against ourselves.

Two new NLRB rulings will greatly facilitate union organizing (found via Hackwhackers).

From Texas, a major win for internet freedom.

The Nashville shooter's manifesto is still being kept hidden.  Several parties, it appears, have things to hide.

This child's death is an outrage.  In a sane world the teacher would get the death penalty.

Even some librarians practice their own forms of censorship.

Forced-birthers are increasingly trying to restrict women's travel, showing their true totalitarian nature.

Even the managers and executives who want to drag you back to the office prefer work-from home for themselves.  Most executives realize that work-from-home is here to stay.

The FTC is apparently preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.

You might want to avoid staying in any Los Angeles hotels for a while.

This guy murdered his own baby daughter, and now the ACLU wants taxpayers to pay for his gender surgery.

Bosses need to stop treating workers like children.  This jackass didn't get the message.

Here's how one CEO is making a fully-remote-work company a success.

Stupidest idea of the year from the world of politics -- starting a war with our neighbor and largest trading partner.

Sorority members in Wyoming will be forced to accept a male member (reportedly with a chronic ogling habit) after their lawsuit to prevent this failed.

Maybe the back-to-the-office mania is just a matter of bad managers.

Trump is totally ignorant of how elections work.

A TV news crew in Chicago was filming a report on the pervasive robberies there and they were robbed.

Cities are gradually accepting reality and converting their unneeded downtown office space into housing, despite some difficulties.

Hospitals have more important things to do than obsess over this nonsense.

Environmental groups are suing the Biden administration for opening up more of the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling.

Our country's economy and global standing have strongly recovered in the last two years, in contrast to the ongoing self-imposed woes of Russia and China.

It's essential that Trump be held accountable for his actions.

More retailers are limiting operations due to skyrocketing theft.  But one, Best Buy, is using common-sense measures to fight the problem.

YMCA in Ohio discovers that women don't want to put up with their bullshit any more.

The Republican party's main problem is that its fundamentalist base is prone to rigid and hypocritical thinking, most notably in its die-hard support for Trump.

A new book assesses the across-the-board "dechurching" of Americans.

McCarthy probably doesn't have the votes even for an impeachment inquiry against Biden.

The New York Times is taking its first steps along the road back to reality on trans medicine.

If you're losing, try to change the rules.

Perpetrators of defamation must be held accountable.  Including when they're politicians.

No, Georgia Republicans can't get rid of Fani Willis, and probably aren't even trying.  Governor Kemp opposes the idea.

The UK increasingly resembles a police surveillance state.

In Australia, the oppressed become the oppressor.  Lesbians and gays have essentially lost the right of freedom of association.

Spanish soccer officials don't seem to realize that the age of boorish machismo without consequences is over.

Poland is building itself up as a major military power, buying weapons from all over the world.

Drone attacks deep into Russia are becoming a major part of Ukraine's war effort, and it's freaking out Russia's propaganda bloggers.

Ukraine has disabled five Russian fighter jets using foamboard drones that cost only $3,500 each.

More than a hundred Russian soldiers a week are being tried and convicted for refusing to fight in Ukraine.

By killing the leaders of Wagner, Putin eliminated a threat at the cost of even more long-term instability.  The collapse of another corrupt regime in the 1990s hints at Russia's eventual fate.

The Taliban are now preventing women and girls from leaving the country for education.

The Chinese regime has a message for its subjects -- "eat bitterness".

More links at WAHF and Fair and Unbalanced.

My own posts this week:  an image round-up, the new covid surge, and China's exploding electric scooters.

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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Thunder and rain outside my window right now.  We've been getting it on and off for a few days.  Perhaps the accursed summer heat is ending early this year?

Liberals often have something worthwhile to say.  Conservatives sometimes do.  Cynics never do.

There's nobody more gullible than a conspiracy-theory nut.

No amount of lies on social media could be even one-thousandth as dangerous as giving government or corporations the power to dictate what is a lie and what is truth.

Whoever condemns the evils committed by his opponents, but makes excuses for or minimizes similar evils committed by those he supports, has no principles at all and is merely a toady.

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.