Link round-up for 4 August 2024

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

o o o o o

An investigation into a theft reaches a shocking conclusion.

School kids pwn teachers for a few laughs.

Have some quirky history.

It shouldn't even be necessary to say this, but shoving a live eel up your ass is not a good idea, especially if you stuff a lemon up there after it.

The disguise seems to be working.

Instant karma indeed (found via Hackwhackers).

Throw in plenty of this ingredient.

Keep away from the train while it's moving.

The old tortoise-and-hare story gets put to the test.

There's never a cop around when you need one, but.....

It's a crab-eat-crab world.

Receive his blessing.

Flying horses!

Pandas goof off.

This is witch kitchen style.

He writes very neatly.

This is a pretty decent song, and no modern musicians would have the guts to perform while dressed like that.

She's got the magic touch with beer.

Nice rescue job.

This looks awesome, not to mention a bit dangerous.

"You need to --" well, I'm not gonna.

Nobody can stop him.

Whatever the hell this is, thank goodness it apparently lives only in the sea.

It's Thomas the evil tank engine.

Close the damn door, it's too windy out there.

See a flower develop, up close.

Smoky air makes for great sunsets and sunrises (click for full size).

This is clever furniture if you're security-conscious or short on space.

What if the Earth was actually flat?

China has developed a nuclear reactor which is fully meltdown-proof.

Knowledge gained from astronomy can help detect "AI"-generated fake images.

OHSU is working toward a flu vaccine giving permanent immunity, so you won't need to get a new shot every year.

Certain nutritional supplements help improve brain function in older people.

Unhealthy ultra-processed foods are carefully designed to trick your body into craving them.

Meditation and "mindfulness" have negative side effects which can be serious.

Here are fourteen factors affecting the risk of dementia which you can control (found via Angry Bear).

Best use of a Bible ever.

Never trust your employer when they tell you a survey is anonymous.

The damage "AI" has done to Google search results may be impossible to fix.

Bud Light sales are still terrible, despite a massive ad campaign trying to resuscitate the brand.

Amazon is apparently very careless.

HOA people are assholes.

"Taylor-gating" allows people to hear concerts for free.

Apparently gadgetry is crap now (I never do any of this kind of stuff so I wouldn't know).

To escape the limitations of streaming, consider Scarecrow.

1,800,000 Teslas are being now recalled because the hood can fly open spontaneously during driving.  The company's idea of a "fix" for this problem is software that notifies you when the latch is open so you can pull over and close it properly.  Just replace the goddam latch with one that works right.

I like the way he thinks here.

If you go shopping in China, here's what you'll run into.  Also, you should never trust Chinese banks.

"AI" just gets creepier and creepier.

Narcissism creates shitty art (some of the comments on this post are brilliant).

Efforts to mix science with "other ways of knowing" are doomed to ludicrous failure.

Men interrupting and talking over women has a long history.

"And you never will."

Be cautious when reading the news.

He was a good dog.

People are getting fed up with corporate price-gouging, and are cutting back on what they buy.

Here's video of the Olympic women's boxing match on Thursday, in which Italian contender Angela Carini stopped after just 46 seconds because the fight with her male opponent was putting her at risk of serious injury.  I had some difficulty finding this, as the IOC has been energetically forcing the removal of video of the match everywhere it's been posted -- they know how bad this looks.  Imane Khelif is not transgender in the usual sense, but this case is a clear example of the unfairness -- and danger -- of allowing men to compete in women's sports.  This boxer gets it.  Discussion here.  Lies debunked here.

Looks like he copped a feel, too.

Athletes, and others, are being forced to apologize for saying what everybody knows is the truth.  The usual evil people are piling on, as are the garbage media.  "Heads need to roll" at the IOC.

The prisoner exchange with Russia was a major accomplishment by Biden.

The thugs who periodically illegally take over entire streets in Portland to race cars are now so unafraid of the police that they announce their crimes in advance on the internet.

Vox agrees with me:  Biden's proposed Supreme Court "reforms" would be pretty much useless.  Only enlargement, or drastically limiting the Court's jurisdiction, will work -- and even Vox doesn't have the guts to endorse those options.

Harassing Jewish institutions cannot achieve policy change -- that's just a pretext for the anti-Semites to do what they really want, which is to engage in mob terrorization of Jewish people.

Elon Musk has put up a register-to-vote website.  Don't use it.

At this high school in Hawaii, half the members of the girls' relay team are boys.

KOSA legislation would destroy the internet as we know it and make everyone vulnerable to identity theft.

Republican senators are getting increasingly alarmed about Trump's foreign-policy views.

Housing costs are now so bad that many people with jobs are homeless.

The main reason why support for gay rights has begun declining is the toxic forms that LGBTQXYZWTF+ activism now takes.

Election results show several red states getting purpler since 2000.

When police work becomes contaminated with ideology, it becomes harder to catch dangerous criminals.

These people are Nazis.  They are actual literal Nazis.

There won't be a second US civil war, but if there were, here's what it would probably look like.

The gangster-regimes in Moscow and Beijing are already spreading fake information to interfere in the election.  Don't believe everything you see on the internet.

The wingnuts are already attacking Harris with deepfakes, including an entire faked speech on video (found via Earth-Bound Misfit).

It is utter barbarism that this man was not sent to prison.

Stop trashing the memory of Anne Frank.

Olympic officials don't care about women's safety, and don't like being asked about it.  Athletes' housing is a fiasco of woketardia.  The South Korean team has been having a lousy time.

"Dutch Olympic officials made a choice."  It was a very bad choice.

Most Latin American leaders smell a rat with the Venezuelan election.

More links at WAHF (more here) and Fair and Unbalanced.

My posts this week:  a JD Vance song, and truths and inspirations.

o o o o o

Sorry for the lack of posts this week.  Personal issues distracted.

My comment on Trump's weird blather about whether Harris is black or not:  No American worthy of being called an American gives a rat's ass whether Harris "identifies as" Indian or black or Martian.  What matters about both her and Trump is what policies they would enact if entrusted with power, not their ethnicity.  An American is an American, whether his or her ancestors came from England or Mexico or Africa or Germany or China or whatever.  This stupid fixation with pigeonholing people into ethnic categories belongs on the garbage heap of history along with Jim Crow and phrenology.

I don't know much about any of the vice-presidential hopefuls, but I like what I'm hearing about Shapiro.  He's strong on Israel and would probably secure Pennsylvania in the Electoral College.  Buttigieg is extremely intelligent, articulate, and likeable, and he's not afraid to go onto "enemy turf" like Fox and talk to right-wing audiences, but he needs a little more executive experience before taking on a position where he might need to step into the presidency.  Maybe do a term as governor of Michigan after Whitmer is term-limited out, then run to succeed Harris in 2032.

Now that the big upheaval over Biden dropping out is over, I'm going to be tuning out electoral politics as much as possible during August.  It's going to be inescapable when the election gets close, and I really need a mental-health break in the meantime.

This week has been full of reminders of what's most off-putting about left-wing politics -- the creepy insistence on treating people primarily as members of demographic categories rather than as individuals.  This reached the point of organizing separate pro-Harris online meetings for white women, white men, and so forth.  It's cringey, outdated, and as un-American as can be.  I wonder if there will be separate drinking fountains for different categories of people at the convention.  It's just depressing as hell.