Link round-up for 8 March 2025

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

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You're doing it wrong.

Sometimes karma works fast.  Sometimes even faster.

Excellent aim.

It takes skill to unload a truck safely.  Or, you could just be like this guy.

Make the cat useful.

I've heard of tree-huggers, but.....

What a crappy, decrepit-looking house -- oh, wait.

View some colorful fish.

Lady M sees skulls everywhere.  Note that she's leaving Blogspot -- her new blog is here.

If you can spare a few dollars, AutisticAF blog could use some help, to keep providing resources for neurodivergent people.

Cas d'intérêt posts some vacation photos from Yucatán near the Gulf of Mexico.

A parallel universe where you could get away with adultery might not be such a good thing.

Atlas Obscura explores whether or not it's mathematically possible for humans and vampires to co-exist.

Can that mass extinction we keep hearing about please happen as soon as possible.

Perhaps you can improve your health by moving to a different country.

This machine can convert rubble into bricks to help quickly build cheap temporary housing for displaced people in places such as Ukraine.

The Loch Ness monster is quite useful even though it doesn't exist.

Otters are the key to a colorful ecosystem off the California coast.

Frequent sex reduces the risk of early death, especially for women.

Over the last thirty-five years, worldwide total tree cover has increased by more than two million square kilometers.

Here's a page that rates twelve browsers by how well they protect your privacy.  Predictably, Chrome is the worst, but the best ones are Tor (didn't know that was a browser) and something called Mullvad which I'd never even heard of.

"AI" is still losing money, will probably never be profitable, and can never be made to work properly.  This is a fake industry that will never amount to anything real.

Microsoft Suite now seems to be going down the tubes, but there is an alternative.

A restaurant's staff offers resistance to arrogant occupiers (slightly gruesome).

Canadian satire site The Beaverton assesses Trump's tariffs and the Canadian response (links from reader Chief Squirrel).

Shrewsbury in the UK is haunted by its dark past -- but also produced one of history's greatest scientists.

A poignant poem highlights the hypocritical arrogance of the wealthy.

Remember not only those who died, but also those who never were.

The Oscars have made mistakes before.

Legitimizing "AI" "art" is a betrayal of real artists.

Nan at Nan's Notebook is looking for new political and religious blogs to read.

Here are things you can do to support Ukraine and understand the situation there better.

You can download Art Spiegelman's Maus books here for free.

Reminder here about scams targeting the elderly.

Wheelchairs are expensive, so here are some designs for building your own.

There's a reason why fabric stores have been losing business.

Owning slaves was a choice.  Sarah Grimké chose otherwise.

Some anti-vax morons in Texas are now talking about holding measles parties.  It's a really bad idea.  Due to the outbreak, even RFK Jr has suddenly switched to supporting the MMR vaccine (see his message here). Anti-vaxers are fuming.

James Harrison spent his life doing good.

Before you destroy a wall, make sure you know why it was put there in the first place.

The "economic blackout" people have declared a boycott of Amazon, starting yesterday -- at least this is aimed at a worthy target, but being only one week, it's still pretty meaningless.  The article confirms that the February 28 boycott "didn't make much of an impact".

Some useful abortion resources here:  the Brigid Alliance, the National Network of Abortion Funds, and Women on Web (abortion pills by mail worldwide).

The political analysis site FiveThirtyEight has just been shut down by Disney.

Firefox has deleted its promise to never sell users' data, but the real significance of this is still unclear.

Robert Reich is back with more reasons for optimism.

Trump caves!  Trump backs down!  Just like a month ago, he has mostly walked back his tariffs on Mexico and Canada within a couple of days of announcing them, after the stock market plummeted and the car industry, among others, raised hell.  He also canceled the signing of an executive order abolishing the Department of Education, under the threat of massive legal challenges.

There's a reason why Elon Musk is so clueless.

Unmask the hypocrisy.

The administration is all in on developing a bird flu vaccine for hens.  Let's hope they'll support one for humans as well.

Spectators booed Cybertrucks at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Abortion access influences where people choose to live and work, thus causing an outward flow of workers from forced-birth states.

Gavin Newsom, long one of the very worst offenders on the trans issue, has suddenly changed course and come out against men and boys participating in women's and girls' sports (good discussion here).  Most likely he's planning to run for president in 2028 and realizes how this issue plays with mainstream voters, but what matters is action, and in view of his record, he can't be trusted.  I'll be waiting to see if he also changes his mind about putting male criminals in women's prisons to terrorize female inmates, a much more fundamental human-rights outrage.  Hakeem Jeffries seems befuddled by Newsom's switch, which isn't good.  The issue isn't going away.

This Christian school in Texas likely doesn't teach evolution, but seems determined to make itself an example of natural selection in action.

The megatrumpazoid assholes in charge are desperately trying to stop federal workers from talking to the media.

If you start seeing attacks on open-source software, this is probably the reason.

A Republican Kansas senator was booed and yelled at by constituents furious about DOGE -- in a rural county where Trump got 85% of the vote.

Today is International Women's Day, and WoLF has some suggestions for activism.

Trump has already buggered up the US economy, at least as far as job creation is concerned.

The Montana legislature is considering a bill to make it a crime to help a woman leave the state to get an abortion.

Florida has opened a criminal investigation into Andrew and Tristan Tate.

Republicans will almost certainly need Democratic votes to avoid a government shutdown by Friday -- creating possible leverage to put a stop to DOGE's unconstitutional devastation.

Bezos's decision to make the Washington Post a vehicle of oligarch propaganda has led to another wave of subscription cancellations, more than 75,000 so far.

Bill Maher suggests a dream presidential ticket for the Democrats in 2028.

Oklahoma Republicans are pushing a bill allowing Christian doctors to refuse to provide medical services that don't align with their taboos.

House Democrats are playing hardball, and may have been doing so for longer than you realize.

Stop calling it "inflation" -- it's price-gouging, plain and simple.

Republicans, listen to what Reagan said about the value of alliances.

Russia and China are trying to recruit US national security employees who were fired by DOGE.

If Canada became a US state (which is not going to happen), it would be a disaster for the Republican party.

In Canada, Trudeau and his party, formerly headed for a huge electoral defeat, have won a surge in popularity for standing up to Trump.

Ontario has canceled its contract with Musk's Starlink company.

Canada's economic retaliation is already hitting one red-state industry.

Trump has ordered the UK not to share US-sourced intelligence with Ukraine (but read this comment, which I suspect reflects reality).

Norway is considering tapping into its €1.7 trillion (!) sovereign wealth fund to support Ukraine.  There's growing support for the idea.

Aix Marseille university in France is offering funding to US scientists whose work is under threat of being politicized here.

French satellite company Eutelsat could eventually replace Elon Musk's unreliable Starlink in serving Ukraine.

France's president Macron is now raising the possibility of extending the French nuclear deterrent to protect democratic Europe, taking over the US role that Trump seems to be abandoning.  His new militancy is popular with French voters.

Germany's chancellor-elect Merz refuses to rule out the possibility of Germany acquiring nuclear weapons.

Europe's Ariane 6 rocket launched and successfully deployed a satellite on Thursday, in marked contrast to Musk's recent rocket failures.

Poland is planning large-scale military training, to be able to raise a large army quickly if needed against Russia in the future.

Trump's cut-off of US aid to Ukraine is being condemned by European leaders as diverse as Marine Le Pen and Lech Wałęsa.

Russia's fossil-fuel revenues, which provide nearly one-third of the regime's income, are falling substantially, mostly due to Europe's boycott.

Russia can no longer maintain aircraft properly due to the cut-off of Western-made parts.

"You are either pro-Hamas or pro-Palestine -- you cannot be both."

Hamas has been true to its promises.

"To the West:  Negotiating human rights with barbarians won't save you."

More links at Red State Blues, WAHF, Sad and Useless, and Chop Wood Carry Water.

My own posts this week:  a World War II video, an image round-up, and how to use boycotts as a weapon.

[Image at top:  the debris from Elon Musk's latest exploding rocket re-entering the Earth's atmosphere over the Caribbean]

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These three upcoming special elections offer Democrats a chance (a small one, but still a chance) to win back the House majority this year instead of waiting for 2026:

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And for International Women's Day, here's Whitney Avalon doing Jurassic Park: