Link round-up for 7 February 2026

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

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Wow!  It's a real driverless car!

You will regret bothering the hippopotamus.

Don't try to play basketball while flying.

The German writing at the beginning says "this is why women live longer than men".

Just drive the truck up the ramp.

The bubble is impressive in size.

An angry man is a careless man.

The cats are on the move.

Do not offend the horse.

She chooses the right tools to get the job done (slightly NSFW).

Raise the periscope to check things out before surfacing.

It's twins!

I don't think this baseball pitcher is enjoying the game very much.

Find out what kind of car this is and don't buy one.

Do not hire this construction crew.

You can knot afford to miss out on these practical skills.

Evolutionary theory suggests that stupid behavior should reduce an organism's chances of reproducing.  Here is an example.

In Norway, clearing snow can be a big job.

China accounts for almost two-thirds of global growth in solar and wind power -- which is important since China is the world's biggest greenhouse-gas producer.

There's a problem with Cybertruck door latches, apparently.  With all of the known problems, no wonder the damn thing is a bigger flop than the Edsel.

An "AI" tourism site encouraged visitors to go to hot springs that don't exist.  Don't use things like this.

Do we need to re-think psychology?  Your comments are invited.

Firefox's long-promised switch to get rid of all its "AI" "features" is scheduled to be available on February 24.  More here including a short video with more detail.

If you use Gmail, you cannot permanently stop it from buggering up your e-mails.  Just switch to Proton -- which, aside from being secure and mostly bullshit-free, raises and donates millions to support free expression and internet privacy.

Microsoft is trying to give the impression that it's going to trim back the "AI" infestation in Windows 11.  It isn't.

A wax figure of Idris Elba was able to unlock his phone using facial recognition.  Anyone with a reasonably good photo of you and picture-editing software to make it look three-dimensional could probably do the same.

"Underconsumption-core" is a movement pushing back against the ad- and influencer-driven fake culture of endlessly buying more and more junk (link from Rade).

Billions of dollars are being invested in "AI" companies which can't even describe a proposed product, much less actually make anything.

Here are some businesses to avoid shopping at (note:  this blogger does not want political comments on her posts).

"AI" psychosis is disturbingly common, with almost one in every thousand conversations producing "reality distortion" (and most chatbot users have many conversations, so the rate per person must be much higher).

The American Academy of Pediatrics is issuing its own vaccine guidance, since whatever RFK Jr's den of quacks emits is now worthless.

Mocking smug, pompous prigs is still recognized as free speech, apparently (the last part is blocked, but you'll get the gist of it).

Did Trump audibly 💩 himself on live TV?

A professor used "AI" to "write" a "textbook".  Here's what the result looks like.

In 2022 two teenagers developed a program that de-shittyized Instagram.  Within days, Meta forced it to be taken down.

Two words: "Elon Musk".

Boycott?  What boycott?

I'm glad the Satanists won based on equal rights, but this whole thing is ridiculous.  They should just take down the extra flagpole and stop tying themselves in knots over who can use it and who can't.

Unions from across the US are challenging Gavin Newsom on his pro-"AI", pro-billionaire-tech-bro stance.

What does JK Rowling actually do, aside from writing?

Don't confuse ICE agents with real police.

The ACLU posted a video supporting men in women's sports -- but foolishly allowed public comments, which show how far out of step their position is with the public.

Did Melania have the hottest documentary opening in over ten years?

This scumbag wants to delay your retirement so the obscenely rich don't have to give up a little of their tax cuts.

Those Waymo self-driving robotaxis are largely being remote-controlled by operators in the Philippines and elsewhere.  From now on, anytime you see any demonstration of "autonomous" robots or "self-driving" anything, you should assume it's being faked unless absolutely proven otherwise.

The economy is supposedly "booming", but job growth is in the toilet -- which means the real economy most people live in isn't booming at all.  Trump's trade wars are also ruining farmers.

"Could you ever have guessed that you'd see grown adults proudly humiliate themselves like this?"

A hundred-billion-dollar "AI" deal has collapsed, threatening the fake industry's circular-financing scam.

There he goes again, pointlessly pissing off the neighbors.

Bitcoin's value has fallen so far that it's becoming uneconomical to "mine" it.  How low will it go?  Time to do some pointing and laughing.

Anti-Semitic crimes are now the most common type of hate crime in Massachusetts.

The Epstein story just keeps on getting worse, and the DoJ is still hiding things, including client names.  Keep up the pressure.

ICE agents speak out, and it's a bit surprising.  Others complain they're not even being paid as agreed.

Even places far from Minnesota, such as suburban New Jersey, are preparing for possible future ICE attacks.

"Suck my....." (keep reading to the end).

The recent batch of Epstein documents contains an allegation about Trump which is too gross to describe on this blog.  Here's a deep-dive overview.

A number of prominent people have lost jobs after their links with Epstein were revealed.  But we still need hard evidence of who was actually committing child abuse.

Gun-rights activists are threatening to not vote for Republicans in November due to Trump and his toadies' attacks on Alex Pretti for being armed.  And now US attorney Jeanne Pirro is declaring all-out war on the Second Amendment.

Here, in detail, is why Trump cannot cancel elections.  Not just doesn't have the legal authority to do it, but can't do it.

Republicans are freaking out over the collapse of their Hispanic support, particularly in Texas.

"The public wasn't mad at phantom inflation, they were mad at real inflation that the 'experts' didn't see."

Democrats are being politically smart about ICE, focusing on law and order rather than coddling illegal immigration which the public opposes.

Epstein victims are receiving death threats and harassment due to the DoJ's incompetent failure to properly protect their identities when releasing documents.

Sounds like ICE hasn't improved (found via Earth-Bound Misfit).

Celebrate oppression!  Or, read some no-holds-barred sanity from Masih Alinejad.

Elon Musk is on the defensive as the truth about his ties with Epstein emerges.  More here, plus some other billionaires.

Schumer beat the Republicans, getting most of the government funded and avoiding a shutdown while isolating DHS funding to be settled later, with the Republicans no longer having the threat of a shutdown as leverage.  And the progs still aren't happy.  These lunatics seem to want a shutdown -- want federal workers to go unpaid and millions of SNAP recipients to get their benefits cut off -- as a display of machismo or something.  The Democrats must stand up to them, and protect the American people from them.

"Don't believe for a second that these people care about victims.  They only care about themselves."  Here's what really happened.

Giving credit where due:  Mamdani has forced food-delivery companies in New York to pay over five million dollars in fines and wage restitution for cheating workers out of their pay -- and is shutting down the city's expensive, worthless chatbot.

"The uncomfortable truth is that the president of the United States is a man with the mind of a spoiled child."

ICE murders in Minneapolis are inspiring more and more people across the US to join resistance groups.

"Islam treats women like shit, and we do get to say that."

This woman won a two-million-dollar settlement against the quacks who gave her a double mastectomy at sixteen (they had pressured her parents into consenting).  That hardly seems enough, but it's a win -- hopefully the first of many.

During Mamdani's first month in office, anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York city nearly tripled compared to the same month last year.

Foreign investors are abandoning US stocks, hoping to escape the risks of Trump's economic bungling and the eventual collapse of the "AI" bubble.

The causes of violence against women need to be faced honestly.

No, there is not a Christian revival in the UK ("opt-in" surveys are worthless -- you can't get a valid random sample that way).

Despite the British Supreme Court ruling last year, some of the trans nonsense is still continuing over there.

Taking the Epstein scandal seriously:  the British prime minister is at risk of losing his job, not because he's suspected of ties to Epstein (he isn't), but because he promoted the career of another politician who did have such ties.  There's a remarkable contrast between European and American handling of the scandal.

The UK's nativist party is opening up to environmentalism -- quite a few potential nativist voters are also concerned about the environment.

Threats from Russia and the US mean it's time for an independent Scandinavian nuclear deterrent.

Trump caved on Greenland after Denmark and Sweden showed him how Europe could wipe the floor with the US in an all-out economic clash.

French cyber-police have raided the French offices of Twitter to investigate its facilitation of kiddie porn.  Apparently laws over there still apply, even to rich corporations.

Europe is learning that it must resist Trump, not appease him -- and it has powerful economic tools for doing so.  It wasn't actually difficult to force him to back down on Greenland, once Europeans put their foot down.

European countries are exploring how to handle military data without using any US technology, since the US can no longer be trusted.  The same issue is influencing weapons procurement.  Europe is now looking to India as a source for some kinds of military hardware.

In the EU, electric cars are now outselling gasoline cars for the first time.

Here are the countries Russians perceive as enemies.

A "two-state solution" in Israel is a malignant delusion that needs to be abandoned.

The Iranian theocracy is terrorizing doctors who treated injured protesters.

More links at Red State Blues, Angry Bear, and Comedy Plus.

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, the "Trappers" video, and a political warning for out-of-touch Democrats.

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