Link round-up for 17 May 2025

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

o o o o o

He's just now learned to drive.

Bowling is not for everybody.

Learn how to manage your cat.

This cop is very concerned about pedestrian safety.

Here are some people and things that Zeus apparently doesn't like.

Effing cats just destroy everything.

Appearances can be deceiving.

Well, there's your problem.....

I have no idea what this is and I'm afraid to find out.

Some interesting old-style futuristic images here (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

This is a rare natural phenomenon called a "sun candle", caused by ice crystals suspended in the air being disturbed in a certain way.  But it's easy to imagine how primitive people seeing such a thing could give rise to a belief in ghosts or mystical entities.

Henri Matisse's daughter became his most important supporter and model.

It was never a dress.

Hear a song assembled out of bits from hundreds of movies, better done than these things usually are.

Flow's win at the Oscars was a national triumph in Latvia.

Here's how to undo some awkward entanglements.

This is a big scary fish (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

The RSV vaccine has led to a major drop in hospitalizations of babies.

The US installed fifty gigawatts of solar power capacity in 2024.  Texas, Florida, and Indiana are among the fastest-growing solar-power states, suggesting that politics is now basically irrelevant to the development of this industry.

China is the world's worst greenhouse-gas emitter, but its emissions have declined slightly over the last year due to a huge investment in renewables.

High-fiber foods can purge "forever chemicals" from the body.

Last week I mentioned Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard scientist detained by ICE while returning to the US from France.  She has now been charged with smuggling, while details of the case look ever more suspicious.  Petrova played a critical role in Harvard's anti-aging research.  The medieval spectacle of a brilliant scientist being immured by ignorant grunting morlocks will further cripple our country's ability to attract the best minds from overseas, or even to keep home-grown scientists here.  The Trumpazoids are blowing America's brains out.

How nasty is smoking?  This nasty.

A true hero has died.

Here's a list of foods that are being recalled due to possible listeria contamination.

Learn the disgusting connection between mustard and the early film industry.

Science and math education is like weightlifting for your brain.

Here's a list of important British inventions -- naturally incomplete, but still impressive.

Even many English majors these days struggle with reading complex texts.  Here is the text whose first seven paragraphs were used in the study -- it is certainly challenging, but anybody who is specifically specializing in English literature ought to be able to understand it.

It is deception that demonstrates intelligence.

If you use Discord, be aware -- enshittification is coming.

Here's a scam e-mail that's going around.

Meta is requiring users who opted out of letting their posts be used for "training" "AI" to opt out again, with a deadline of May 27.  It's not clear to me whether this applies globally or only within the EU.

Far Corner Café blog, apparently blocked on Blogspot for over two weeks, is now posting again.

Darwinfish 2 reviews a rock band past retirement age.

Here's an explanation of the Eurovision Song Contest for Americans.  But it has a dark side too -- more here.

Nice round-up of images here.

Meta claims in court that its users actually like seeing ads.  Isn't that perjury?  See the comments too.

You can watch all these movies for free on the internet -- they're mostly old, and include some classics.

This Moscow Victory Day parade befits Russia's current condition.

A woman in Brazil is facing three years in prison for saying that 2+2=4.

You are being spied on.

"But eventually that's just noise......"

Be careful when filling out those customer service surveys.  You could endanger somebody's job.

This tip may help get Paxlovid more cheaply.  I haven't checked it out, just passing along the information.

The "AI" plague is now so pervasive that people think any art that looks strange and surreal must be "AI" even when it's actually real art.

Language ability helps in dealing with just about everything.

In some cases, people can instantly see that race-swapping characters is absurd.

National parks are very dangerous to idiots.

The Library of Congress guards its independence.

"Comparing every horrific thing to the Holocaust is a form of Holocaust denial."

RFK Jr has a new scam for his war against vaccines.

Their votes mattered.

The Catholic Church has its priorities.  Details here.

Arguably the benefits of staying politically informed aren't worth the psychological costs.

The Little Ukrainian Well-Armed Girl is a blog showcasing art about the Ukraine war.

Why do people believe weird and dangerous things?  (Note -- if your answer to that question is basically a string of insults disguised as an explanation, it's wrong.)

Trust your instincts about danger.  Don't let the government shame you for it.

Here's an idea for making it clear why habeas corpus is important.

That's easy for you to say, fuckhead.  You're not the one stuck in some barbarian rat hole with jihadist maniacs threatening to murder you.

Using "AI" to write computer code won't work.

Get ready for the summer of scarcity.

Blogger Annie explains the upcoming "No Kings" protests on June 14.

These students are throwing away their chance at an education.

Here's how one Trumpist left the cult, and how others will do so.

A tech specialist explains why ChatGPT can't be used for fact-checking.

Protesters rally in Worcester MA to demand that their local police stop cooperating with ICE.

Even if these people are ignorant enough to really believe Israel is an "apartheid state", that doesn't explain the depth of their hatred.

Everyone in the US should read this message from Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum.

Social Security recipients may soon have up to 15% of their benefits seized if they have old unpaid student loans (or, I suppose, if DOGE-scrambled records lead the undermanned bureaucracy to believe they have old unpaid student loans).

Remember John Brown.

There's still one area where Trump's policies have majority support.

The campaign against "AI" is working.  Keep up the pressure.

Video here from a Tesla Takedown rally in Bend OR.  Bend is a city of about 260,000 in inland Oregon which used to be pretty conservative, though it has recently become more politically mixed due to migration from Portland.

Shocking information:  homosexual men are homosexual.

The disgusting Episcopal Church is refusing to help one category of refugees specifically because of their race and national origin.

Governments in several countries are now attacking encryption.  The Mozilla Foundation is trying to fight back.

Trump has (mostly) backed down on tariffs on China, but the economic damage is done, and will not be repaired quickly.  His repeated retreats have popularized a new acronym -- TACO.

After this travesty, the Pulitzer prize is no longer worth anything.

Protesters swarm the Rayburn building during hearings on Medicaid cuts.

"Russia invading Ukraine is one of the most morally clear-cut conflicts, period."

Some crank is using pizzas to terrorize federal judges.

Trump is weak, afraid, and losing battle after battle.

Bullies don't like it when everyone can see what they're doing.

The "protect the dolls" slogan is creepy as hell.

The UK may be finally getting serious about cutting immigration.

This teacher doesn't understand what his job is about.

India Willoughby wants to know where the gay men are.  Well, here's one.

Healthcare in Iceland works very differently.

Amsterdam's main Jewish paper documents the atmosphere of fear in which Dutch Jews now live.

Some examples here of imagery from German protests (in the second picture, the words mean "annexations", "tariffs", "climate destruction", and "mass deportations").

Find out why a German man who procured children to be raped by a pedo received such a light sentence.

France is in talks about stationing some of its nuclear weapons in other European countries, taking on more responsibility for deterring Russia.

More here on the EU's campaign to lure US scientists who have lost their funding here to continue their work in Europe.

While Trump flounders on the Ukraine war, the EU is imposing tighter new sanctions on Russia.

Dozens of French-built howitzers will soon be howitzing for Ukraine.

Russia has replaced many of its air defense systems near China with fake decoys, transferring the real ones to the Ukraine front.

Here's what happens when a javelin missile meets a Russian tank, as seen from another Russian tank which then wisely fled the scene.

Russian incompetence, not Ukrainian attacks, was probably behind the explosions that wrecked the huge GRAU munitions depot in April.

A defector details some of the gross abuses prevalent in the Russian army.

About a third of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza still support Hamas, and about half view the October 7 atrocities as "correct".  Large majorities oppose disarming Hamas.  I honestly don't see how real peace will be possible without transferring this population to some place far from Israel.

The Iranian theocracy is stepping up its military aid to Russia.

Chinese exports increased dramatically in April after Trump imposed tariffs, because the rise in exports to other countries more than offset the drop in exports to the US.

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

My posts this week:  a personal note, addressing health issues, and the uprising in Balochistan.

o o o o o

While the West fiddle-faddles and hand-wrings, India joins Israel in getting the job done, smashing jihadism and its enablers.






And it turns out China's weapons technology is as craptacular as its civil engineering: