Link round-up for 8 February 2025

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

o o o o o

If you're hungry, you can get something to eat on the train.

A tense confrontation finally explodes into violence.

A skilled plumber knows how to loosen a pipe.

Here's what happened when a nearly-blind man was drafted.

She may not quite understand the exercise, but she's got the spirit.

Virtual reality headsets are more dangerous than you think.

Being a guru can be kinda tough.

Take some advice from "AI".

He is the best vampire.

Sheep are unassertive critters.

Visit Xtremesylvania, or maybe don't.

This restroom accommodates many tastes.

Why are pyramids pyramids?

Let's antagonize the stegosaurus (hey, they didn't have rockets to divert asteroids).

Here are the winners of the 2024 Manitou Springs skeleton craze.

What a romantic way to pay his girlfriend a visit.

They weren't dressed to fight, but.....

A child plays with a distant cousin.

Some beautiful pictures here (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

This is Verona, Italy.

When a wetland restoration in the Czech Republic was delayed by red tape, these outside engineers solved the problem.

Physics looks weird sometimes. And how a siphon works may surprise you a bit.

This hunter takes on dangerous prey.

"Very cool but also kind of a dick move."

Now that the UK has eliminated coal as an energy source, it aims to get all electricity from renewable sources by 2040.

One form of dietary fiber, beta-glucan, seems likely to offer benefits comparable to Ozempic.

The invention of bags was probably as important as controlling fire.

Covid is still around.  Here's what to do if you suspect you're infected.

An asteroid has just been discovered which has a small but non-trivial chance of hitting the Earth in 2032, with an impact blast of five to fifty megatons.  This is why astronomers scan for things like this -- to detect them in time to have some chance of launching a mission to divert the asteroid if needed.

You are what you eat.

These people are very health-conscious.

From each according to his ability.....

A philosopher applies for an "AI" job.

If Death Note were real, it could be useful.

Here's a look at the worst products and services which exemplify the "enshittification" of the internet.  I don't have or use any of these, so it shouldn't be too hard for others to get rid of them.

This is how dumbasses win arguments, or believe they win them.

"Now that she is old....."

It's OK to not be a morning person.

Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, has published a graphic-novel-style compilation on life in modern Iran, focusing on women.  Always remember that most Iranians aren't religious fanatics (fewer than half are even Muslim) -- they just have the bad luck to live under a regime that makes Trump look like a flaming liberal.

"I was not born to be pitied.  I was born to raise Hell.  Autistic style."  Note:  Includes disturbing memories of trauma.

Margaret Brown lived an active -- and activist -- life.

France doesn't tolerate shit behavior in its train system.

Always stress-test your beliefs to make sure they're in accord with reality.

It takes courage to observe White Wednesday in Iran.

One of the blogs I used to read most avidly was that of Faye Kane, until she discontinued it in 2016 (the blog is actually gone now, so the links in that post no longer work).  She's now back under a new name with a new blog, Pseudometric Spacetime.  It's mostly about astrophysics, on a level which is generally beyond me, but does have a long post about her unusual life story and philosophy (some NSFW art and text).

In these crime-infested times, perhaps we should bring back medieval armor.

Good tip here on detecting scammers.

I'm old enough to remember the stench.

She has every right to be angry at this disaster.

Is your neighborhood shit?  Maybe a taco stand can help.

Don't mistake fake clinics for real ones.

This site claims it can help you get all the documentation which your insurance company used to refuse a claim, in order to help you appeal.  I haven't tried it.

Here's one way job interviews discriminate against poor people.

"Why do you care about a tiny fraction of the population?"

Please sanitize your links -- YouTube and other sites are adding junk strings at the end of links which are not needed for the link to work, but allow people to be tracked.  In almost all cases, if a link contains a "?" symbol, it and everything after it should be deleted; the link will still work.

30% of Navajo people live without running water -- you can donate here to help.

Big-name journalists continue to abandon the billionaire-owned Washington Post en masse.

He gets to set boundaries, but no one else does.

You might want to avoid flying for a while.

Remember, Luigi Mangione has not been proven guilty of anything.  There are concerns.

Read the full saga of Bud Light, an incredible story of dumb corporate management gone off the deep end.

"But if they don't want unions....."

The fake records set by men participating in women's sports need to be expunged from the statistics.

Here's a look at why black male voters shifted toward Trump in 2024, relative to earlier elections.

The old MSM are billionaire-owned and effectively dead -- look to the new media to defend democratic values.

Another of Musk's pet hackers has been exposed for supporting Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate (found via Earth-Bound Misfit), while yet another was fired by his previous employer for betraying company secrets, and has shown an "interest in harassment campaigns and Nazism".  Musk sure has a genius for hiring the best people.  Oh, and he wants to bring back Marko Elez, who resigned this week after his racist social media history was exposed.

These people know what they're doing.

There's a tentative deal to end the nearly-month-long healthcare strike here in Portland.  But many nurses are calling it inadequate.  Nurse understaffing was a big part of what drove the strike.

I'd seriously like to see any Trumpist try to justify this.

"Labor is where the power is."

Someone in Texas has a message for Elon Musk.

"It's all of us against the billionaires."

As ICE raids ramp up, criminals are posing as ICE agents to commit crimes.

The horror of child transitioning may be coming to an end in the US.

Here's what is being done to oppose Trump's and Musk's wrecking of the government.

The Cybertruck is an epic flop, selling at just 20% of the anticipated volume.  Tesla as a whole seems to be turkeying out badly.

ICE is releasing some detained illegal aliens within the US, because of overcrowding at holding facilities.

Nobody ever won a war by declaring defeat without even fighting.

Political must-read of the week:  The "spending freeze" fiasco reveals Trump and his gang as what they are -- not a diabolically brilliant cabal playing 4D chess while inexorably sweeping away laws and the Constitution, but bumbling incompetents who have no idea what they're doing and will back down when faced with enough resistance.

"China now apparently recognizes Trump's full-of-shititude and playability."

Even among Republicans, support for Musk's role in government has fallen dramatically, from 47% in November to 26% now.

Detrans rates are far higher than trans ideologists admit.

George Will engages in gaslighting about covid policy.

Say their names (here's an accessible version of the article linked in that post).

Among young voters, "those who cared the most about the economy and immigration broke heavily for Trump, and there were simply more of these voters than those who cared most about abortion or who trusted Democrats to handle the first two issues."

Give credit where due -- here's a billionaire doing something positive.

Support for trans ideology is partly rooted in lack of empathy.

"But her e-mails!"

The Democrats still seem determined to lose more elections.  Their messaging continues to be hijacked by fringe groups.

Tesla sales are plummeting in Europe, partly because they suck and partly because Musk is such an asshole.

From the UK, a grudging victory for sanity.

This doctor exists.

Several hotels at the beach in Aberdeen, Scotland, are being used to house asylum seekers.  The beach is no longer safe for local women.

Salwan Momika, an Iraqi atheist and anti-Islam activist who lived in Sweden, was recently murdered after burning a Koran.  Since then, others have posted Koran-burning videos in solidarity, though I can't verify the claim that it's "thousands".

Yahudiler giremez.

It is typical that a Nazi tries to silence those who tell the truth about him.

Zelensky says Ukraine should have nuclear weapons if its entry into NATO is delayed.  The US will not supply them, even after the war ends, but Ukraine is certainly capable of building them by itself.

A Russian medic describes conditions on the front in the Ukraine war.

El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, but most people there never used it, and now the country is abandoning the failed experiment.

They've taken out the garbage.

71% of Israelis now oppose a Palestinian state, a figure which has risen substantially since earlier surveys.  Clearly the October 7 attack has had its impact.

Silence enables oppression.

More links at Red State Blues and WAHF.

My own posts this week:  a video on class consciousness and national re-unification, an image round-up, and Elon Musk at work.

[Image at top found via Cas d'intérêt]

o o o o o

I've been hearing something about cutting off the supply of condoms to Hamas in Gaza?  Yeesh, STD rates among goats there will skyrocket.

o o o o o

I know that some readers are not fans of comment moderation, but it's necessary.  The obsessive troll(s) I was harassed by a few years ago have given up, but occasionally new trolls still surface.  A couple of months ago one asshole posted a comment accusing me of lying about having suicidal impulses, belittling my ongoing sense of loss since the death of my mother (long-time readers know both of these things are very real issues), and otherwise insulting me.  Obviously I rejected the comment in moderation, and after further consideration, permabanned him.  Since then he's tried to comment several times, snarkily "testing" me, never offering a serious apology or asking why he was offensive (if he really didn't know), not that such things would make any difference at this point.  I will not put up with this kind of garbage appearing here, even momentarily.  I've seen what happens on blogs that don't quickly smack down insulting or quarrelsome commenters.  The hard part is doing this while still making supportive commenters welcome (which is also important).  I do the best I can.

o o o o o

I feel compelled to return to the subject of the Holocaust and modern disrespect.  The Holocaust was part and culmination of the ancient and unique evil of anti-Semitism specifically.  It could not have happened except as part of that specific evil, and cannot be understood outside of that context.  Any attempt to turn it into a generic bad thing that can be used as an analogy for whatever bad thing is going on today, unrelated to anti-Semitism, is a defilement of historical reality -- and a lie.