Link round-up for 5 July 2025

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

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Cats don't always get along with other animals.

Here are some people being not very good at things.

It sneaked up behind and viciously attacked her.

Here's how a bowling ball can be used as a musical instrument.

Time to face reality.

Cats get caught in the act.

Is this what's meant by auto-eroticism?

This person is sorely tempting natural selection.

The revolt of the machines begins.

Not everyone is good at cooking.

It's obviously a poltergeist.

You may kill me, but I will have my revenge.

She speaks for the fish (this is actually pretty funny).

Turn off that stupid phone and pay attention to what you're doing.

These underwear are supposed to make your schlong look like a wolf; in fact they make the wolf look like a schlong.

When you need to deter an attack, you use whatever you have.

Fear this terrifying beast (damn thing probably had rabies).

They needed a bigger boat.

Here, just step inside this tree.

Halloween is less than four months away -- time to start working on decorations.

Craig Thompson drew a graphic-novel-format journal of a trip through Morocco.

Here's why US currency is called the dollar (found via Miss Cellania).

Photos here from a visit to Palatine Hill in Rome, and the Pantheon and more.

Learn how a wolf pack is organized.  This is true -- I've read about it elsewhere.

Here's why robins' eggs are bright blue.

This theater is two thousand years old and still in use.

See one full rotation of the Earth (and they even have it rotating in the correct direction -- I hate it when they get that wrong).

NASA's Trumpified budget may prevent it from studying an asteroid passing close to Earth in 2029.  Learning more about this potentially dangerous object will probably depend on the European Space Agency.  In general the Trumpazoids are trying to shut down NASA's science missions.

Moderna's new mRNA flu vaccine is highly effective.  Whether or not Americans will be able to get it depends on RFK Jr's crew of quacks.

Europe, Japan, and other democracies are stepping up to the plate to support the science -- and scientists -- that the US is driving away.

Researchers have modified an ancient Egyptian fungus into a cancer-fighting drug.

Vaping causes lead poisoning.

Orangutans are very smart, which is why they don't do much.

The oldest known boomerang has been identified -- and it's not from Australia.

The newest version of Firefox includes some "AI" features.  Here's how to get rid of them.

The Metaverse is a dull and pathetic virtual-reality world.

If you see a message like these on your computer, it's a hack attempt.

This engineer is developing glasses that work like an ad-blocker for the real world.

Modern Catholicism offers gluten-free Jesus.

Time-travel fantasies are pretty much a male thing.

This vaccine would be really useful, but the exact people who need it would be the ones to refuse it.

All hail the twinks.

It's apparently easy to turn a chatbot evil.  There's also this (do watch that sample video, it's awful and hilarious at the same time).

The vast majority of people, when they encounter paywalls, just click away rather than paying to read.  This is why paywalled news sites are irrelevant -- hardly anyone's reading them.

Ignoring the failure of "AI" and the Metaverse, Zuckerberg offers a new eruption of silly hype.

Some tips here on dealing with Mormons.

Weird sexual fetishes don't belong out in public.

This tool claims to block political text spam -- I'm a bit skeptical about how well it works since it uses "AI", but hopefully we'll get another report once this blogger is actually using it.

Here are some of the effects fireworks have on wild animals.

It is never a good idea to bet your money on Elon Musk.  Check out these assholes -- I'd love to watch them lose a ton of cash.

Yes, the fact that ChatGPT can't play chess is significant.  It illustrates that current "AI" is not actually intelligence in any sense.

This was the right time to walk out.

Part of the reason why "AI" (and consumer tech in general these days) is such crap is that the people in charge are gibbering idiots who don't know what they're talking about.  This is long, but quite entertaining.

Phone scammers now have more information about you than you'd expect.  Don't be fooled.  The same goes for e-mail scams.

The most dangerous kind of scam of all is medical quackery.

Venture capitalists resort to wildly ridiculous math to claim that "AI" will someday make money.

They had met before, eighty years ago.

Why do conspiratards believe in lizard people?

A self-driving Tesla decided railway tracks were perfect for driving on.  Luckily the occupants got out before the inevitable result.

When your wife is abducted by government goons, your options are limited.

It's no longer true that a general increase in vote turnout would help Democrats.  People who are eligible but don't vote are evenly split or skew slightly Republican.

The mass public backlash against "AI" is growing in ferocity.

A woman who was banned from a public swimming pool because she complained about men using the women's locker room sued the city and the YMCA and has now won $65,000.

Americans vary greatly in their attitudes toward political news, with 37% avoiding it as much as they can.

An experiment in which an "AI" agent was allowed to run a vending machine failed absurdly.

One of the victims of the June jihadist attack in Colorado has died.

Let's talk about California.

Microsoft is firing thousands of workers so it can spend more money on "AI".

Before the Republican budget bill passed, Elon Musk threatened to start a new political party if it did so.  If he's serious (you never know with this guy) and puts any major resources into this, it will boost the Democrats' chances in future elections by dividing the right-wing vote, just as left-wing third parties and candidates help the Republicans by dividing the left.

"Impacts in the real world?  Who cares if you don't virtue signal!"

Several cities canceled their Independence Day events due to concerns about crowd safety, ICE raids, and terrorism.

The Trumpazoid DoJ supports the Catholic Church's efforts to shield child molesters from justice.

Buyers are more likely to reject products advertised as containing "AI".

The gay movement for equality and freedom has been subsumed by the trans campaign of ideological coercion.

Watch what Republicans do, not what they say.  It's events like this that will bring home the reality of Republican policies to rural voters who support them.

A campaign of terrorization (this is not just "bullying") against a Jewish student in Seattle is a sickening reminder of the surge of anti-Semitism in the US.  This school in Virginia responded to a comparably vicious campaign against three Jewish students by expelling the victims.  But I predict not a single left-wing political blog or site will mention these cases.  They don't want to acknowledge the issue.

Chatbots are literally driving people crazy.  Some people now are even "dating" them.

UPenn will apologize for allowing a man to compete on the women's swim team and invade the women's locker room.  But genuine justice would mean actual punishment.  It's too bad this is being framed as a win for the Trump administration, but that's the Democrats' own damn fault for siding with the abusers over the women being harmed in cases like this.

Trump is issuing more tariff threats against Japan, which seems to be getting bored with responding to his blather.  Recall that Japan holds a trillion dollars worth of US Treasury bonds, far more than any other country, so it's well positioned to retaliate if need be.

Crops are rotting in California's fields as migrant workers refuse to show up due to fear of ICE raids.

Kilmar Ábrego García suffered serious abuse in El Salvador.

Tesla's stock has fallen another 11% since Musk returned to his active role there.  Aside from the utter fiasco of the robotaxi launch, sales are still plummeting.

Ireland has completely ended the use of coal as fuel, the sixth European country to do so.

The Hungarian government banned gay pride parades, but almost 200,000 people showed up for one anyway, or about one out of every fifty people in the country.

Watch a precision drone attack on a Russian radar complex in occupied Crimea.

This North Korean mobile rocket launcher was not only blown up, it shot itself in the cab.

Ukrainians strike a military production facility and a chemical plant in Russia.

Here's a Russian ammunition depot in occupied eastern Ukraine.

An academic paper condemns Israeli soldiers for not committing rape (scroll down).  No matter what Israel does, someone will find a way to brand it as evil.

The Chinese regime seems to think it can even control reincarnation.

More links at Red State Blues and WAHF.

My own posts this week:  an image round-up, a video on Chinese fake technology, and Independence Day.

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Three ancient countries on the periphery of the Islamic world, sharing a common problem:


Speaking some truth to the EU Parliament:


A no-nonsense defense of freedom of speech: