Link round-up for 28 December 2024
Nice car, but how does the driver get in?
Some narrow escapes here.
Feliz naughty-dog.
The wind is "blowing".
What a great bike jump..... oops.
Is this the squirrel equivalent of Marilyn Monroe?
Dogs are still dogs, even on Christmas.
A tiger expresses its opinion of zoo visitors.
Keep running! OK, now stop.
A few snarky images here.
The dog gave her a Christmas present too.
This situation was a real pain in the ass.
I see faces everywhere (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).
How cold is it? This cold.
More signs of the times here.
This is Poland at Christmastime.
Find out what a kallikantzaros is.
Here's a bar with a Nightmare before Christmas theme.
Witness a daring rescue at sea.
Build a bottomless pit in your living room.
This kidnapping attempt didn't go as planned.
Trees don't stand a chance against this robo-lumberjack.
Dark Thoughts blog has photo memories for each month of 2024.
At the coldest time of year, a tribute to warmth.
Broken Peach covers the only Christmas song I actually like.
There can be no ethical consumption under vampirism.
Artisans keep the spirit of Creepmas alive.
Here's a scene from Jurassic Park with scientifically accurate velociraptors.
This is called "marbling", apparently. Not quite sure how it works.
If I had a Christmas tree, it would be this one.
What's behind this wall?
Incredible porcelain art here.
See Indian elephants taking some time off.
Guess where this landscape is.
See what happens when two bullets collide.
The UK has successfully tested a new weapon that can shoot down drones with blasts of directed radiation.
Athens is refurbishing an ancient Roman aqueduct to boost the city's water supply.
Quantum computing has the potential to squelch cryptocurrency at last, but it will take some time to accomplish this.
The US has already lost its chance to control the spread of bird flu. If it mutates to spread among humans easily, that will mean a pandemic -- and with widespread anti-vaxism and hostility to science and public-health measures, the country is more defenseless than at any time in almost a century.
The clearer it becomes that "AI" is crap, the harder they keep pushing it.
That's a bug. You're eating a bug (warning -- disgusting images).
Pwned, I think.
During World War II, Michelangelo's art was well-protected (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).
IndieBound can help you find independent bookstores near you.
Vagabond Scholar has posted the Jon Swift Roundup for 2024 -- the self-selected best posts of the year from more than two dozen blogs.
Relationships often work better when you don't live together, especially for older people.
These kinds of people need to be checked on.
Here's a bit of common sense from Nietzsche.
How badly has porn ruined sexuality? This badly.
Murder hornets have finally been exterminated in the US.
Art depicting the Messiah should be worthy of its subject.
Experienced creative people know how to pwn censors.
"AI" fakery preys upon lonely people.
That supposed Danish response to Trump's talk of buying Greenland that everybody is quoting is actually a joke from 2019.
YouTube is assholing again -- this may help. I got the same message a couple of times, but then it just stopped appearing.
Is Christmas even worth celebrating?
".....because this is the only religion of compassion."
Money can buy happiness.
The only way they can make their point is by lying.
Here's a new twist on an old philosophical test.
It is not "bigotry" to have standards.
Crazy Eddie blog has some unexpectedly revealing questions for Trump voters.
Even after major retailers have abandoned downtown Portland because of all the robbery and vandalism, local authorities still rarely make any serious effort to prosecute shoplifters.
A moderate conservative blogger makes the case that Mangione isn't the CEO shooter.
Morons who don't understand anything are threatening weathermen and spreading ignorance.
The US mainstream media have abandoned their proper role as part of a democratic system (read the comments there too). They're now even normalizing invasion threats. Forget them and move on. Democrats should focus on helping workers unionize, because unions are a critical channel of communication to working-class voters now that the MSM are basically useless.
It's relatively easy to hack chatbots and make them give "forbidden" responses.
This does not look like a fair trial.
No matter how thoroughly the "genocide in Gaza" lies are debunked, it makes no difference to the crypto-Nazis all across the West who don't believe the Jewish state should be allowed to exist at all.
A new study confirms that companies which drag remote workers back to the office tend to lose their best people.
Two-thirds of Americans are exhausted with the barrage of politics-and-government news and are actively tuning it out. Readers may recall me warning several times that this was true as far back as May. Raising vast sums of money and spending it on endless political ads that drive people crazy is probably counter-productive at this point.
Oh FFS, the country is becoming irredeemably stupidized.
"And for those who think getting rich people into government is a good idea because they are already rich and less likely to steal, I have some bad news: the rich are rich because they are the most greedy and avaricious people on earth."
Converting motels into apartments helps provide affordable housing.
Consider the Trump presidency in historical perspective.
Speak up -- demand safety.
California's raising its minimum wage for fast-food workers to match developed-country standards didn't cost jobs -- just the opposite.
October 7 brought the monstrous evil of anti-Semitism fully out of the closet across the West.
This was entirely predictable. Next time, vote for the Democrats.
Learn what is terrorism and what is not.
"Moderate" insanity is still insanity.
After years and years of US presidents choosing rich unqualified clowns as ambassadors because they donated to a political campaign, Trump is throwing a tantrum about the UK's choice for ambassador to the US.
Reddit is totally excluding certain viewpoints and ideas -- and there may be an easy explanation. And the hypocrisy is flagrant.
The authorities risk provoking the people beyond endurance.
Abortion rates in Kansas have skyrocketed as women flock there to escape forced-birth laws in nearby states.
Nearly half the states in the US, including some red ones, will raise their minimum wage in 2025.
Trump is already losing control of the Republican party.
"There seems to be three paths ahead..... This level of inequity cannot stand."
This health insurance call center worker has an interesting story to tell.
The Catholic Church also has a long history of non-sexual child abuse.
The US government does not have an over-spending problem, it has a revenue problem due to more than half a century of insane tax cuts for the wealthy.
How serious is a threat? Apparently it depends on who the target is.
Biden's decision to shit on the graves of dozens of murder victims by commuting the death sentences of their murderers may be linked to the Catholic taboo on the death penalty -- an example of an inappropriate religious influence on government.
A "dangerous woman".
Democratic politicians need to stop this counter-productive behavior.
Here's some background on Trump's bullshit about the Panama canal.
The left is recovering from the plague of woketardia.
Oklahoma's new school standards push Christian nationalism.
Ukraine can win the support of Republicans.
"Marjorie Taylor Greene ripped the Trump mailers out of my hands and threw them on the floor in disgust."
This US Army general has a long history of pushing his own religion on soldiers.
Trump isn't even president yet and he's already a loser. Republicans in Congress are already showing that they will defy him.
Global progress toward sex equality in education has stalled.
A quirk of British law allows some people to trick others into sex and face no legal consequences.
In the Netherlands, mob violence against Jews is no big deal.
There have been major anti-government protests in Slovakia (where the ruling party leans pro-Russian) and in Serbia.
73% of Ukrainians support their country building its own nuclear weapons.
See a Ukrainian drone strike in Kazan, Russia, hundreds of miles east of Moscow. Here is the result.
In accordance with the Putin regime's religio-nationalist character, its latest weapon is a plane designed to dispense holy water and carry religious icons.
Russia observes Christmas in ways well suited to a gangster-state.
See yet another Russian oil facility burning out of control.
Putin's nuclear saber-rattling is actually increasing international support for Ukraine.
Russia's crap engineering and maintenance standards strike again.
A wave of arson attacks is sweeping Russia, targeting banks and a draft office. Here goes another one.
Workers at a Chinese car factory in Brazil work under "slavery-like conditions" and are apparently victims of human trafficking.
After hundreds of Houthi jihadist missile and drone attacks on Israel, Israel is launching serious retaliation against Houthi installations in Yemen.
Due to sanctions and regime incompetence, Iran -- with more oil and gas than almost any other country -- is facing a severe energy shortage.
Women are rallying for equal rights in Syria. The Kurdish-dominated northeast has always been ahead of the rest of Syria in this regard.
Plenty of Arabs reject endless conflict with Israel.
Never forget the Yezidis.
More links at Red State Blues.
My posts this week: an image round-up, and some brief observations on ghosts.
If humanity never develops a cure for the aging process, then in a little over a century, every one of the eight billion people now living on Earth will be dead. Yet there are people who oppose seeking such a cure -- who hold that eight billion deaths (and more and more for ever and ever) would be acceptable or even good, and that we should do nothing to prevent them. For such people, there isn't even a word. They're not Nazis. They're whatever the next evil thing is beyond Nazis.
I'm getting a sense that the activist fringes of the political left and right are intensely uncomfortable with the national wave of mass enthusiasm in response to the UHC CEO shooting. It's too off-script. "Hey, stop being so interested in that! Pay no attention to the oligarchy behind the curtain! Get back here inside the echo chamber and go back to hating on the opposite party! Get back to talking about our kind of stuff!" The newly vocal class consciousness is unifying ordinary people from across the political spectrum, and the politics junkies can't stand that. It's eroding the polarization and demonization that their whole world-view depends on.
I choose truth over loyalty, always. If a public figure or party I basically support does something bad, I will call them out on it. I will not come up with some contorted rationalization for why it wasn't actually bad, or avoid the subject and hope it just goes away. To me, this is a critical part of intellectual integrity.
11 Comments:
It is true that money can't buy happiness; but it can upgrade despair.
These were all wonderful and entertaining. Best to you in 2025.
For the Pink Panther car, the driver just climbs into the open cockpit in front. Jay Leno has a good video about the car - google jay leno's garage pink panther
Some of these were just great. I hope you have a great new year. Staying home for New Year's Eve? I am. My poor dog doesn't like all the fireworks.
Shaw: Thanks. I know it's a lot harder to achieve happiness without money than with it.
Ward: It would be awfully awkward climbing into that -- or out. Plus it's got just enough glass around it to make getting in and out even harder, but not enough to mitigate the wind when going at high speed.
Mary: Thanks. I don't go out on New Year's Eve -- it's freezing cold and there's nothing much to do. Even staying home, the fireworks keep me awake.
So, where is the flyover footage from? Mars? Moon?
Pluto.
Did you take the photos yourself? :-D
I would have, but it was a bit chilly out.....
I thought that pink car was hideous. I thought that was Pluto, knowing your affection for the maligned planet. Many little movies to capture and share. Thanks for linking to me! Have a great New Year. We're doing nothing, too.
Phooey, I forgot to say that we're in a heap of trouble if the bird flu jumps to people.
Hell of a piece of bad luck for another pandemic to be looming just as trump is about to get back in, bringing a passel of anti-vax loons with him.
People have been pointing out that Musk is an immigrant, but I suspect his home planet is actually Pluto, since he's a plutocrat.
Post a Comment
Please be on-topic and read the comments policy. Spam, trolls, and fight-pickers will be deleted. If you don't have a Blogspot account and aren't sure how to comment, please see here. Fair warning: anything supporting transgender ideology, or negative toward Brexit, or in favor of a military draft or compulsory national service, will be deleted. I am not obligated to provide a platform for views I find morally abhorrent.
On work days there is likely to be a substantial delay in approving comments, since I can't do blog stuff in an office. For this I apologize.
<< Home