Link round-up for 15 November 2025

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

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Please note -- my e-mail address has changed.  For the new one, click on "Email" in the left sidebar of my Blogger profile.  I will continue to check the old e-mail for a while, but eventually it will be phased out.

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Wet road pwns kangaroos.

Greet some cheerful faces.

No matter what she does, the sculpture will be what it wants to be.

This man can have a beer anytime he wants.

Look at me, I'm an aircraft carrier!

Some people shouldn't drive.

His bath has a hell of a view, but he doesn't care.

Would-be parcel thieves get pwned.

Nice little revenge story here.

Where did Enya go?

Thursday was World Kindness Day.

This is Tajikistan.

"And then, at some point, the people who left started coming back."

A new analysis shows that the Roman Empire's road system totaled 186,000 miles, much greater than previously thought.

Rates of colo-rectal cancer are skyrocketing in people under fifty, due to increased consumption of red meat, ultra-processed foods, and refined sugar.

The outlook on global warming has improved enormously since the 2015 Paris agreement.  Even though Trump pulled the US out of the agreement, the other 96% of the world has continued to work on solving the problem.

UK scientists have developed a way to re-grow tooth enamel.

Long-term melatonin use correlates with a higher risk of heart trouble.  This is a new finding and more study is needed to determine exactly what it means.

Besides being lower in calories, a diet free of animal products will help you lose weight by imitating the effects of cold (without the discomfort of actually being cold).

Listening to music can substantially reduce your risk of dementia.  And knowing more than one language slows down brain aging.  So there are concrete benefits to being cultured.

Stray cats struck a blow against the bitcoin plague.

Happiness will not be found in the rat race.

The US has stopped minting pennies.  Due to inflation, it no longer makes economic sense to produce them.  The image at the top of this post is the 1787 "Fugio cent", ancestor of the modern penny; it was the first official coin of the US and by some accounts was designed by Ben Franklin.

Starbucks workers are on strike.  Please respect their picket lines.

The Vine video platform is returning -- and "AI"-generated junk will be banned.

Cas d'intérêt blog recalls the 2015 jihadist attacks in Paris.

"Smart glasses" are back, enabling weirdos to film anyone they interact with without their knowledge.

Some tips here on easily adapting common household items for older or disabled people.

Google is pushing "AI" in its "Nano Banana" photo-editing program.  I haven't yet seen any instructions for disabling it.

The FDA has announced recalls of certain brands of pasta and tomato sauce.

Spotify is full of fake "AI"-generated "music", but also has fake "AI" customers to "listen" to it.  Not even Kafka could ever have imagined that such advanced technology would be used in such ridiculous and dreary ways.

"There really is no one involved at any point in the development of these tools who actually understands what they're doing, huh?"

Disney+ plans to let users create their own "AI"-generated Frozen sequels.  I predict a deluge of hideous cartoon porn, with Elsa going all Catherine the Great with that water horse or whatever.

"AI" will teach your kids to burn your house down.

RSV, a respiratory disease especially dangerous to babies and the elderly, is beginning to sweep the country.  A vaccine is available, but there are no anti-viral drugs for RSV if you actually catch it.

OpenAI has to spend unsustainable amounts to maintain Sora, its video-faking "service".

What did Karl Marx actually think about Jewishness?

He'll never call them losers (this is real -- I checked).

"Stress tolerance" for blog comments and chewing noises?  Can you imagine how people like this would react if they ever had to deal with an actual problem?

Only 49% of Americans now describe religion as essential to their daily life, down from 66% in 2015.

Yet another lawyer has been caught using "AI", submitting a court document filled with citations of non-existent cases.

Some state legislators plan to require NSFW sites to block anybody using a VPN from within their state -- which isn't even technologically possible, and that's only the beginning of why it's a stupid idea.

It's a very popular event.

They attacked her memorial (this is true -- I checked).

An ostentatiously-Christian Senate candidate in Texas turns out to be following various porno actresses, hookers, and OnlyFans models on Instagram.  He now says he didn't know who they were, but even that suggests an inattentiveness which is not what we want in a senator.

Forty percent of US women under forty-four say they would like to leave the country permanently, up drastically since before 2017.  I'm skeptical that so many would actually leave if they could, but it's an indicator of discontent.

Right-wing political strategist Sean Davis has a scathing assessment of the Republicans.

Don't force archaic gender stereotypes on children.

Trump touted an obviously fake story from a satirical website.  Yeah, he has dementia, but this still serves as a reminder to fact-check any claim you spread, especially if it's something that aligns with what you want to believe.

Data centers are a new unifying factor in US politics.  Pretty much everyone hates them.

Schools here in Portland have adopted heightened security measures to counter the threat of ICE.  Washington county (the western suburbs of Portland) has declared a state of emergency, and the city of Eugene south of here is investigating allegations that its own police have been collaborating with ICE.  Teachers in Hillsboro (one of those western suburbs) are conducting security patrols after ICE abducted a parent.  ICE is creating a climate of fear for Hispanic businesses across Oregon.

Anti-Zionists show their true colors.

Here's why so many young men are getting radicalized into the far right.

Slaughterhouses are infested with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

One courageous woman called out a politician on his bullshit.

Josette Molland deserves to be remembered.

Many schools around the world have banned smartphones, sparking a return to normal human interaction.

People don't care about real genocide, only fictitious genocide.

The Massachusetts millionaire tax is working out just fine, bringing in almost two billion dollars for education and transportation while none of the predicted negatives have actually happened.

There's been a major backlash within the Heritage Foundation against its leader's defense of Tucker Carlson platforming Nick Fuentes.

"We're traumatized, they're having a party."

In a win for voting rights, Kansas Republicans have dropped their plan to gerrymander the state.

You don't help the poor by humiliating them.

The IOC is about to ban men from women's sports in the Olympics.

This frankly sounds reasonable.  But some people would rather have a civil war than "a human connection with someone you disagree with".

Marjorie Taylor Greene says she doesn't believe in QAnon qrackpottery any more.  This, and her recent breaks with MAGA on health coverage and the shutdown, suggest she's moving toward the political center in hopes of running for president.

The November 4 election results showed Republicans are losing much of the gains they had made among Hispanic voters, hardly surprising given ICE's depredations.

The UK has stopped sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug smuggling in the Caribbean because it doesn't want to risk being complicit in Trump's random attacks on boats there.

It's time for those who facilitated trans ideology to be held accountable.

European countries, preparing for a possible wider war with Russia, are stepping up arms purchases from Israel.  Germany's massive re-armament is making it a major military power again, rekindling some old anxieties in France.

NATO has stopped the Russian incursions into Estonia's airspace by scaring Russian pilots with superior Western technology.

Last weekend's Ukrainian attack on the Russian port of Tuapse caused a spectacular explosion.  Here's another petrochemical plant that was attacked.

This is a Ukrainian gunner shooting down a Russian Shahed drone from a helicopter.

The high-tech Russian army advances.  (Apparently the convoy in that video has already been destroyed).

The Russian military is abducting and torturing family members of soldiers who desert.

Russian soldiers are facing yet another torment -- corrupt and abusive military police.

Israel is one of the world's healthiest and most prosperous countries, despite the global campaign of hatred against it.

Obesity is widespread in Gaza, suggesting there can't have been much of a "famine" during the war.

Saudi Arabia's preposterous, megalomaniacal Neom project has stalled and will probably go no further.

India is facing a wave of deadly terrorism.

Democratic Japan and Europe are increasing their commitment to the defense of democratic Taiwan against the Chinese gangster-state.

The half-mile-long Hongqi bridge in China collapsed this week.  It was brand new (just finished in January), but I've pointed out before that China's civil engineering is utter crap even by Third World standards.  There's no reason to think their military technology is any better.

More links at Red State Blues, WAHF, and Comedy Plus.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, how judgment is coming for Epstein's clients, and the process moving forward.

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The Epstein e-mails that came out this week don't seem to me to be all that significant.  They don't mention any individuals by name as having committed any sexual abuse, which just means that Epstein and his correspondents had enough sense to avoid openly discussing felonies in e-mails.  So the fact that any one particular individual is not stated to be an abuser in the e-mails means nothing.

From what descriptions we have of the complete files, there is almost certainly actual graphic video of rich perverts screwing underage girls.  That's what will tell us who they are.

The names of the clients -- every last one of them.  Nothing less will do.

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In history's eyes, the ratings are in:
The sicker the mind, the thinner the skin...
From Caesar to Mao, from Stalin to now,
Their egos quick to BLOW!


Deep down, not so different:


The Constitution, not the will of the president, is the supreme authority in our country.  And, yes, I for one have actually read the damn thing.  So should you.