Link round-up for 4 April 2026
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The daughter of fellow blogger Mary Kirkland, whose photos I've sometimes posted here, has suffered a serious medical crisis and is in need of help with medical bills and loss of income. Click here for more information and a GoFundMe link. Mary also posted an update yesterday.
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Addition: Congratulation to our military forces for the successful rescue of the second crewman from the F-15E shot down over Iran two days ago. It was a complex and risky mission and was apparently carried out without US casualties.
Also noteworthy, if true, is this report that Iranian civilians had been blocking streets to obstruct regime forces who were trying to reach the US airman.
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Holiness is funny.
Dogs take some time off.
Light the candle on the birthday cake.
He aborted the launch, but it was too late.
This must be a special gas station reserved for idiots (though in that case the motorcyclist doesn't belong there).
What the hell did he think would happen?
Do not let this person park your car.
Check out this cat-proof table.
Watch where you're going, dumbass.
Christ is risen!
These are signs of the times.
It's not properly scary until it's grammatical.
This performer respects her audience.
It may not be rational to expect rationality.
A dead fish provides some interesting scientific insights.
German and Chinese researchers have found a way to shut down an event that triggers Alzheimers -- in mice. Testing on humans will probably take years.
One entire lineage of flu viruses appears to have gone extinct, probably because of anti-covid precautions during the pandemic, which also had the effect of limiting flu transmission.
The world installed 814 gigawatts of new solar and wind power in 2025, more than any previous year.
The American Heart Association, unlike RFK Jr and his crew of quacks, knows what it's talking about.
Biruté Galdikas, pioneering orangutan field researcher, has died. She was 79.
Some good tips on drawing facial expressions here.
Marco Rubio, fashion icon.
Listen to trans people.
GrapheneOS respects your privacy, even if your government doesn't.
There is now a "White House app" for smartphones. Don't use it.
"They just waited. Because they knew something I didn't: That wisdom isn't persuasive to people who haven't earned it yet."
Whenever you can, handwrite instead of typing.
Some situations are not complex.
Don't use "Perplexity" -- even in incognito mode.
People talk about "AI" doing what humans should be doing, but this is just sad.
The entire codebase of Anthropic's Claude "AI" has leaked, bringing some interesting revelations.
A new documentary debunks the famous 1967 film supposedly showing a Bigfoot walking among trees. This story startled me a bit because I didn't realize anyone outside the hard-core cryptid nuts took the original film seriously. I've seen it (view here) and it's perfectly obvious that it's a man in a suit.
Bluesky is introducing "AI" features; the users are furious and disgusted.
"The point is not that everyone believes the lie. The point is that enough people comply in public to make it feel socially mandatory."
The refusal, rejection, and banning of "AI" is a trend which is spreading throughout all of society.
"On the one hand we have Sunday school stories about three Hebrew boys that stand up to an evil king that insists everybody bows to his statue or get thrown into the fiery furnace and on the other hand we a (supposedly) good God that does the exact same thing."
The trailer for the new Harry Potter TV show got 277 million views in its first forty-eight hours.
Being gay isn't the only thing that can get you executed in Iran. Check out this girl's heinous crimes.
The Seminole nation of Oklahoma has banned data centers from its territory, with strong support from its neighbors.
Blogger Annie has a report and photos from the No Kings rally she attended in New Jersey. See also blogger reports from Buffalo NY, Albuquerque NM, Charlotte NC, and St Paul MN. Here are more signs from around the country. This report has only one photo, but I love it. There was even a small protest in Utqiaġvik. John Pavlovitz found value in attending a rally after previously expressing doubts. The media are generally estimating total nationwide attendance at between eight and nine million.
Growing numbers of Democratic legislators are now supporting higher taxes on the wealthy. These tax increases are too small to do much good, but it's a step in the right direction. All the more an indictment of those like Newsom and Hochul who continue to oppose them.
California voters beware: a billionaire-driven campaign is trying to trick you into voting to sabotage the state wealth tax initiative.
You are not a mushroom.
There are truly vile people among us.
Getting constantly screamed at by Stephen Miller is apparently a rather stressful experience, but of course it's all Biden's fault.
This company tried to push an "AI" tractor. It "kind of sucked" and now the company is going under.
The Trump administration is cutting corners on nuclear reactor safety.
This is what it was like before all those burdensome regulations the Republicans and corporate types are always complaining about.
Ed Zitron believes we're right on the verge of the collapse of the "AI" bubble, and lists some signs by which we'll know when the collapse is actually starting.
"So I’m sorry but no, me, my family's, my friends', and my nation's freedom is not up for debate."
Must-read of the week: By failing to unequivocally condemn the jihadist campaign of murder and terror against Israel, absurdly accusing Israel of "genocide" for fighting back, and then ignoring the Iranian people's struggle to overthrow their country's mass-murdering theocracy, the Western left shows that it has utterly lost its moral compass. "These are not peace activists. They are bloodthirsty monsters who side with the world's worst oppressors and against a democratic, pluralist, free country defending its people..... Choosing the right side of history has rarely been so obvious."
However, this is an interesting point -- unlike with some previous wars, there have been no mass protests in the US against the Iran campaign (it was mentioned on a few signs at last week's No Kings rallies, but was not a major theme). Polls show a majority of Americans against it, but do not measure how much people prioritize the issue or how sure they feel of their views about it. Perhaps many privately have doubts about the virtue of opposing Iran's liberation.
Women who stand up for themselves inevitably get men calling them names.
The end of Sora highlights the aesthetic failure of "AI".
This is the experience of leaving the church.
"I'm rich enough to live in areas where this will never affect me. But you guys, you working class people, you can deal with it."
Maine is about to ban any new data center construction until late in 2027. Hopefully the whole "AI" fad will have collapsed by then anyway. About half the data centers planned for completion in 2026 will be either canceled or delayed.
The Supreme Court delivered an eight-to-one win for free speech in Colorado. The lone dissenter was the one who said during her confirmation hearings that she couldn't define "woman" because "I'm not a biologist".
House Republicans caved on DHS funding, agreeing to a plan that doesn't include ICE funding, which will be dealt with separately later.
Discussion here of the difference between "trans rights" and gay rights.
The Pentagon is hosting a Protestant Good Friday service -- but no Catholic one.
This is why civilized nations need to have the death penalty for terrorism. Imprisoned terrorists just get released in suicidal "deals" with jihadists.
Mark Zuckerberg is becoming less and less popular, probably because he's getting more and more obnoxious.
No, the Olympics' new rule excluding men from female sports does not mean genital inspections.
The flight attendants' union at United Airlines has won a new deal including the first raises there in six years.
Trendy Western feminism ignores the most oppressed women in the world.
Wikipedia has banned "AI"-generated content.
People who destroy books are pretty much never the good guys.
It turns out that farming insects for food isn't economical. I don't know why anybody thought this was a workable idea. In the West at least, people just don't want to eat bugs.
In the UK, "far right" is now an epithet for anyone who stands up to Islam or trans ideology. The situation here in the US isn't much different.
Lawyers in the UK are trying to create a free speech law for their country. It desperately needs one.
Sweden is de-computerizing its school system, bringing back real books and pens and paper and banning phones from classrooms.
Russian billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska proposes that Russian workers adopt a twelve-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week work-week to "accelerate the country's economic transformation". I suspect the "transformation" produced by implementing this plan would resemble the one France went through in 1789.
Watch a Ukrainian drone destroy a Shahed drone incoming from Russia.
Ukraine's destruction of a critical Russian electronics factory -- and the impossibility of repairing or replacing it -- highlights the decrepit state of Russian high-tech industry.
This petrochemical factory looks pretty much totaled out. It's hundreds of miles east of Moscow, so if this was a Ukrainian attack, it shows an ability to deliver devastation at an impressive range -- and suggests that Russian air defenses are utterly crap.
Here's a Russian armored column destroyed by Ukrainians a week ago. Fullscreen the video to hide the irritating gif some twag posted just below.
Ukrainians are already helping the war effort in the Middle East.
See Israel's Iron Dome system intercept an Iranian missile over Tel Aviv.
Christians thrive in Israel -- in the Palestinian-run territories, not so much.
The Islamic regime in Iran is so incompetent they sometimes don't even bother to remove the "AI" watermarks on their faked propaganda pictures.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, is banning most social media for children under sixteen.
China is successfully foresting the Taklamakan desert, one of the world's most barren regions.
More links at Comedy Plus.
My posts this week: some truths and inspirations, and a look at the Iran war one month in.
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It's lucky Noem's husband was a cross-dresser and not a furry. If he'd been walking around dressed as a dog, she might have shot him.
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posted by Infidel753 at 12:18 AM
13 Comments:
Great roundup. Thanks for the boost.
Enjoyable as always! The trans thing is so out of control and along with terror supporters helping to wreck the D party. It’s sad…
I recently read an article in National Geographic about bug farming. One thing it mentioned was separating the bug from the bug poop, but they didn't go into any detail on that. I still can't get passed the "ick" factor, even though I eat shrimp.
There’s science around the paper list! I only know I won’t be seen staring down at my damn phone from the vehicle, through the dangerous parking lot, while shopping and all the way back. It’s embarrassing. And on AI, I have actually seen some fun product. Creators like Geddy Ruxpin and Shockfactor make cheesy horror spoofs in 1940-50s visual style. Delightful. That doesn’t mean AI can drive for me, however. I mean c’mon already.
Leanna: Thanks for the posts!
Paula: Thanks! It's indeed sad, that so few on the left are willing to call out those destroying it from within.
Ricko: It's curious that some people will eat large bugs like shrimp, lobsters, and crabs, but won't eat small ones. They're all bugs to me.
Tim: It figures that handwriting engages the brain in ways that typing doesn't. Physically, they're quite different processes.
I have seen a few cases of "AI" being used to make genuinely aesthetic things, which obviously takes a lot of skilled intervention from the human creator. But the vast majority of what it produces remains dull and pedestrian stuff churned out at the behest of lazy people.
Good round-up of links this morning, Infidel.
- Interesting, the Iryna Zarutsica controversy. A building owner tried to put the mural on the outside of his bar in Providence (4-stories). I think the hatred over the mural is not so much the meaning as issues with the patron - Elon Musk, who was funding it. THAT made the people of Providence halt the installation. I can understand why people are defacing the murals elsewhere. It was considered propagandist. It was interesting, the loudest voices in opposition to the removal of the mural came from the talking heads of the RI GOP (the one kid actually looked like a mini JD Vance). I just went "Ah-yup. All I needed to hear." All the city asked was that, for large art installations (multi-story) like that - to follow the ordinances for installation. It is being removed from the original location and installed up on Providences Federal Hill on the side of a single-story establishment. We'll see where it goes to from there.
- Was on Blue Sky for about a week. Deleted my account. Figured it was destine for the crap-pile of social media.
Rade: That certainly qualifies as vile. To object to a memorial to a murder victim because Elon Musk paid for it? Even to vandalize it, and others to the same person, once it appears? Truly vile people, to do such a thing. Have they no thought for her family? How could it be considered "propagandist" to be against stabbing an innocent person to death on a train? Is there some constituency in favor of doing that? Same for calling it a "controversy". Is there actually a controversy about whether that kind of behavior is a good or bad thing? Some people's moral sense is just dead inside them. It's like they're no longer capable of normal human feelings. Loathsome, evil, degenerate filth.
I have no interest in social media, but I had high hopes for Bluesky when it got started. But it seems to have become a left-wing echo chamber not much different than the right-wing echo chamber Twitter is these days. Not much need for such a thing.
Somehow... I don't believe that Elon had altruistic motives in funding these art installations.
And then we have these antisemitic attacks happening more and more regularly here in the US. Caught this on World New Tonight...
https://abcnews.com/video/131699433/
Elderly Jewish woman targeted in Florida. So fucking sad.
Elon Musk's motives are irrelevant to the moral depravity of attacking a good thing just because he was supporting it.
I'll be posting a more detailed response on this tomorrow or later today.
Thank you for posting the fundraiser link again. I really appreciate it.
I'm glad the US military crewmen were rescued.
I still write out grocery lists to take to the grocery store. My daughter makes a list on her phone.
I had never heard of Perplexity before.
Mary: Glad to help. I hope she gets the full amount she needs.
I was really worried about that missing airman. People taken prisoner by the Iranian theocracy are often treated more hideously than most Americans can really imagine. Torture, rape for prisoners of both sexes, and beatings so vicious that half the victim's teeth are knocked out, are all common. Thank goodness he was rescued before they got him.
My normal procedure for shopping is to handwrite a list and then forget to take it to the store with me. But I think writing it out helps me remember what to get.
Good to see another great list; as always, it's chock full of info.
--Thank you for posting the tips on drawing facial expressions. Yes, even I, someone who's been drawing for years, appreciates this; art is a lifelong learning process. It's always good to be reminded of the fundamentals.
--The articles you posted about the failure of various AI projects just shows that once again, so much of this was just hype and an attempt to shove this in our faces without any permission.
--I shed no tears for the shutdown of Sora. As someone who once worked in animation, I could not stand the cheerleading around this program, especially from those who constantly insult artists by using AI slop generated by Sora. How many times must the point be made that animation works when there are human minds and hands involved?
--No protests in support of the people of Iran, and no protests focusing on the hundreds of thousands who have died as a result of the decimation of USAID by Trump's administration. And yet on social media Leftists still keep wailing on about Gaza while calling for the destruction of Israel. And they ignore the plight of women everywhere--including here in the US--because the only women that matter to them reside in that one spot that starts with G.
--A good (and hilarious) point about Noem and her husband. I shed no tears for them or for Pam Bondi.
Once again, appreciate these posts. Keep them coming!
Anon: Sorry for the delay in posting your comment. I really thought I had checked for new ones earlier in the evening.
The "AI" thing seems to be obviously just hype. There are no real success stories, just vague claims and hand-waving and grandiose talk about what will happen in the future. Nothing they can point to that's happening now. I remember when Sora first came out, a guy on YouTube saying he thought usage would decline very quickly once the novelty wore off, and it did. Nothing it produced looked artistic or interesting.
The only protests in the West in favor of removing the Iranian theocracy seem to be those held by Iranians themselves. It's incredible how the activist left has once again managed to miss the boat on this one. I honestly don't know what "reside in that one spot that starts with G" refers to, though.
Thanks for the encouragement!
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