Link round-up for 21 March 2026

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

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Lookit me, I'm doing a wheelie..... oops.

You can tell where this dog is from.

Apparently this garage is haunted by the ghost of Rube Goldberg.

Asshole pranksters get pwned (and wet).

He wasn't letting the door close, so.....

Actual physics doesn't work like in the cartoons.

A search for missing property ends with a shocking discovery.

What are we growing this year?

Read a disquieting hypothesis about the Cars movies.

We Kant survive this kind of nonsense.

A quick-thinking citizen pwns a couple of robbers.

It's a small but cozy home.

When they say it's windy in Wyoming, they mean it.

If you like odd and creepy stuff, Brno in the Czech Republic may be the place for you.

On the other hand, there's plenty of weirdness in Ohio too.

This is Neptune Beach in Oregon.

Blogger Lady M has some pictures from Wales.

This is the New Forest in southern England, and the witchy town of Burley nearby (though "new" is something of a misnomer now since the New Forest was established by William the Conqueror nearly a thousand years ago).

For centuries Londoners celebrated "Frost Fairs" whenever the Thames river froze over.

He can see clearly for the first time.

See (and hear) US anti-missile defense protecting our embassy complex in Baghdad.  This looks like some kind of laser, but it's actually high-explosive projectiles designed to explode if they miss the target, to avoid damage on the ground from them falling.

Iran has lost the technological edge it once had, as more and more of its best scientific minds have emigrated rather than live under a repressive theocracy.  Israel, too, worries about a brain drain in the long term, and even the UK's cuts to spending on basic science threaten the country's progress.  I've already linked to reports on how growing numbers of US scientists are considering emigration because of funding cuts and Trump's authoritarianism.  The best minds will go where they can find an atmosphere of freedom and where their work is supported.

China's large-scale development of clean energy makes it less vulnerable to disruptions of oil supplies like those caused by the Iran war.  There's a lesson there for the US.  Europe is already acting on it.

Must-read of the week:  Ed Zitron, in his usual entertaining style, explains why there is absolutely zero possibility of "AI" companies ever coming anywhere close to profitability, and he dissects and debunks the various rationalizations and gobbledygook used by the hypesters.  Make no mistake -- this whole thing is a scam, everybody involved is up to their eyeballs in debt that can never be paid, and when the whole house of cards eventually collapses, it's going to take down a good chunk of the economy with it.

"The mice couldn't turn this off.  But you?  You can."

A self-driving Tesla nearly drove off a freeway overpass.  The owner is suing.  Stay away from these things unless you have a death wish.

Accurate translation matters.  Obviously machine "translation" would be hopeless at nuances like this.

What's next for "LGB without the T"?

Jesus was concerned about getting to the airport.

Google search is using "AI" to falsify some headlines in its search results.

This is what these people find amusing?  I could understand it if they were, like, eight, but teens and twenty-somethings?

Waymo still expects San Francisco's first responders to move its robotaxis when they malfunction and get stuck.  It's no wonder the city is now seeing a massive backlash against the maddening machines, with some people even setting them on fire.

Every time I think there's a limit to how arrogant and hypocritical and loathsome politicians can get, one of them proves me wrong.

Here's how debt has lately become a major tool for the billionaire parasite class to extract even more wealth from both workers and consumers.

"Kill all Jews", says graffiti at San Jose State University.  Then there was this.  We have a problem.

The University of Florida did take some serious action against anti-Semitism.

The next "No Kings" rallies will take place on Saturday, March 28.

What does "queer" really mean?

Attention Catholics:  You'd have a lot to lose if the "Christian nationalist" nutcases ever took over this country.  A preacher who has the ear of Pete Hegseth believes that Marian and Eucharistic processions should be banned as forms of "idolatry", and such views are not rare among militant Protestants, some of whom even regard Catholicism as Satanic.  The comments on this article similarly reveal a lot of Catholic intolerance toward Protestant "heretics".  Only fully secular government preserves freedom for everyone.

Oh, and here's an example of a Christian nationalist in politics.  Then there's this guy.  Such people would be seriously dangerous if they attained real power.

You can't improve understanding of a problem by lying about it.

Gamblers betting on the Iran war threatened a journalist, trying to force him to alter a news report so they would win money.

Voters in Ohio strongly support libraries.  There's no reason to think voters elsewhere don't.

The American people are rapidly reaching a bipartisan consensus on trans ideology.  It's time for politicians to fall in line.

The recent Temple Israel terrorist attack in Michigan could have been one of the worst mass killings in US history, if not for the vigilance of the temple's security officers.

Joe Kent is not worthy of admiration or support, no matter what you think about Trump.

83% of Republican likely voters support the military campaign to overthrow the Iranian theocracy.

More than sixty thousand Washington Post subscribers canceled in one week after Bezos fired almost half the paper's journalists.  Just wait until the remaining subscribers find out about his new algorithmic price-gouging plan.

"The point is that if we recognize it or find out about it, we get recourse....."

What is the true meaning of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia?

Democratic politicians still have a lot to learn about appealing to rural and mainstream voters.  Just changing the subject away from their unpopular cultural positions isn't good enough.

However, Democratic voters have more sense, at least in Illinois -- all six of the Israel-bashing fringe House candidates perceived as potential "Squad" members in that state lost their primaries this week and will not be candidates in the general election.

"The assumption that academic dishonesty is okay is rooted in the idea that what you’re learning to do doesn't matter."

A US district judge has blocked a lot of the damage RFK Jr is doing to the US vaccine recommendation system.  Now let's see whether he obeys the order.

Opposition by residents has stopped a data center in Maryland.

Promoters of Jew-hatred like Mamdani, Tucker Carlson, "the Squad", and Nick Fuentes need to be ostracized and universally condemned.  Neutral attitudes, such as that of JD Vance, are not good enough.

If you live in the UK, don't vote for the Greens, even if they seem like a safe protest vote.

The volume of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia has doubled since November, while Russia's ability to intercept them has declined as its air defense systems are being destroyed.

Ukraine is developing sea-going drones capable of operating in the open ocean, promising to revolutionize naval warfare.

Protesters in one town in Cuba ransacked and vandalized the local Communist party office.

The Iran war has exposed the Arab states of the Gulf as paper tigers.

In Iran, the appointment of a military adviser drew widespread ridicule on social media.

Here's a summary of why historian Victor Davis Hanson believes the Iranian theocracy will fall, and fairly soon.

Israeli air attacks are increasingly targeting the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards -- the enforcers the theocracy would rely on to suppress an uprising.

Crown prince Rezā Pahlavi's latest interview mentions a network of resistance operatives, the "Immortal Guards", working within the theocracy to undermine it.  Pahlavi and his supporters are already planning for what comes after the end of the regime.

China, like Russia, is now providing military aid to the Iranian regime.

More links at Red State Blues and Comedy Plus.

My own posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, a job worth getting done, and a video of our highways in the sky.

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I admit I don't know much about Ro Khanna, but can we at least consider him as a presidential candidate in 2028?  He's strongly supporting Bernie Sanders's billionaire tax bill, he seems solid on anti-Semitism, and he worked closely with Thomas Massie to get the Epstein files exposed -- an important cause in itself, and we need a president who can work with members of the opposite party.  The guy seems like a better option than most.

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Dumbass politicians have no clue how technology works -- and they don't even know that they don't know: