Infidel753: Link round-up for 22 August 2026

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

Ten weeks to Halloween!

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I wish I would encounter this kind of ATM glitch.

Leave my kid alone!

Yap yap yap..... oops.

This guy does way too much work around the house.

I Am Mental blog brings us some more cringe commercials from decades past. Let's just say several words seem to have changed their meaning since then.

Sometimes, being rude has consequences.

Here's a review of a Jason Statham movie. Never mind which one -- the review works for all of them.

Here's an exhibition with some very unusual art on display.

Some great sky photos from Las Vegas here.

An Ohio blogger visits Oregon's wine country.

This is the Cetina Spring in Croatia, also known as the Eye of the Earth (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

There's a lot more to bees than you think.

Here's a good demonstration of how light works.

The mRNA cancer vaccine is looking promising.

It's not aliens. It's really not.

This explains why there are only two sexes -- think gametes, not chromosomes.

Instagram is still awash in creepazoid content made with "smart" glasses. These glasses have become a major tool for harassing women. They're also helping teenage boys get an early start on the creepy pervy stuff.

Use your power as a customer to complain on behalf of workers. Their bosses may not listen to them, but they'll listen to you.

Here's a guide to self-defense against surveillance.

This is why the ground smells like that after a rain.

If a person avoids making eye contact, it may be autism, not shiftiness.

Here's a librarian's guide to disabling "AI" features in various programs, conveniently in alphabetical order.

One of the influencers OpenAI paid to shill for them is shocked at the anti-"AI" backlash she's getting. I don't know how this person "influences" things -- she sounds totally clueless.

In fairness, here are some influencers even stupider than that.

A weird cult of cannibalism exists among us.

The publisher of Axios apparently can't read properly.

Nobody's spying on our customers. Eventually the store won.

Life expectancy in the US has started rising again, but the news isn't as good as one might think.

"We all know, dudes. If children see it, everyone sees it."

Here's an advance look at the Trump navy.

A Kentucky school handed out "AI"-generated garbage to students, including a ridiculously garbled map of the US.

There's a campaign afoot to turn Halloween into a night of action against surveillance cameras.

YouTube ads just keep getting worse. But I myself haven't seen a single ad on YouTube for years, because of uBlock Origin, nor has YouTube ever stopped me from watching anything because I was using an ad blocker.

Lazy, "AI"-using fakers are enraged that watermarks may expose them for what they are.

US politics is awash in money from many groups -- singling out AIPAC as uniquely illegitimate is bizarre and disturbing.

An Ohio grand jury refused to indict a man for destroying a surveillance camera.

Many medical students are using chatbots to cheat, meaning they aren't learning the skills they will need, yet may still manage to graduate and become doctors.

Here sits a freedom-loving citizen.

After half a century of skyrocketing inequality, with a tiny oligarchy sucking up more and more of the wealth the workers produce, many ordinary people are now resorting to gimmicky loan schemes to pay basic expenses like rent and utilities.

Former Trumpazoid Rich Logis left the cult and is now helping others to do so.

Democratic party leaders in San Fransisco are kowtowing to their billionaire donor masters and coming out against the California billionaire tax initiative. The story includes a standard politician trick that California voters should be alert for -- claiming that while they oppose this initiative, they would support a national billionaire tax later. It is always easy to say you support some vague thing that might or might not materialize at some time in the future, while opposing the actual concrete proposal which is on the table now. Of course, if someone did propose a national billionaire tax in Congress, they would find something wrong with it and oppose it, while claiming they would support some other hypothetical proposal in the future. And so on. No plan is perfect. But this initiative is what's actually available, here and now, this November.

It's way too early to be considering 2028 presidential candidates, but here's a survey of current public preference. Rubio is leading Vance on the Republican side. Buttigieg does best against both, while AOC is the only Democrat projected to lose against both.

Democrats are making the fight against data centers part of their effort to flip a Senate seat in Ohio -- and the Republicans say it's working, and will work nationally. But their "solution" is to try to weaken public opposition to data centers rather than getting on the bandwagon themselves. They are clueless. But there are some exceptions -- Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers supports a moratorium.

Opposition to data centers is also becoming a major political issue in Florida.

Democratic candidates who focus their campaigns on fighting Trump are flopping in primaries. People want legislators who will focus on actual problems like prices and jobs, not on political infighting and posturing.

In California, strip-searches of women prison inmates are now being video-recorded and uploaded to the cloud.

It increasingly looks like the gerrymandering of Texas is going to backfire because of the massive Hispanic swing away from the Republicans.

Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidate for governor of Texas, is capitalizing on public hostility to data centers to put Abbott on the defensive. Polling up to now has shown her only three or four points behind Abbott, so if she can move the needle with this issue it could prove decisive.

Learn why a long-time sports columnist for the Seattle Times just resigned. Discussion here, Mediaite assessment here.

The feud between Ossoff and Trump is getting ridiculous. Ossoff is attracting support because of his blunt and honest straight talk about Trump's corruption and hypocrisy. But Trump's underlings are responding with childish insults. "Cuck loser" and "feminine theatre kid" are the language of zit-face teenage incels on Twitter, not a national leader.

"Everything they actually do, they accuse us of."

Marjoreene claims that Trump and his gang are contemplating the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. (Just before the 2016 election I warned about this exact thing.) If this is true, one can only hope that the military leadership will talk some sense into them -- or be ready to refuse orders to commit what would almost certainly be mass murder.

The revolt against surveillance cameras is just the beginning. There will be more and more resistance to the politicians and billionaires using technology to erode freedom. Already, power-crazed tech-bro CEOs and "AI" defenders are facing the righteous rage and hatred of the people.

ICE is being sued for harassing people who criticize it.

A store in Tennessee that deals solely in Trump merchandise is going out of business due to declining customer interest.

This seems disqualifying to me. A senator damn well needs to know at least the basics of foreign policy. Even I could have given a better answer on the Taiwan question.

When people say "globalize the intifada", this is what "intifada" means.

A federal judge has restored some abortion protections in Idaho.

Trump's attitude about conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln is in line with his history of disdain for the military.

Mamdani is resisting Freedom of Information Act requests for documents related to his pattern of anti-Jewish actions since taking office.

The US Navy may have to waste billions on a pointless redesign of its aircraft carriers just because Trump thinks it looks better.

When the "AI" bubble collapses in the US, Europe will be affected too.

The Guardian is saturated with defamatory lies and bias against Israel. Earlier I did recommend it as a news source, but it should not be trusted on anything to do with Israel or Jewish people.

The German government is increasing surveillance of its people, especially of the nativist AfD party which it designates "extremist" -- rather absurd since voters are flocking to it and abandoning the old establishment parties. Such efforts to thwart and undermine democracy are especially alarming in view of Germany's history.

Not all the migrants who flooded Ceuta have left -- there have been fifteen rapes reported since the invasion and women are leaving the territory.

Moroccan riot police blocked another attempted mob invasion of Ceuta last weekend. I guess they realized all the stories about looting and rape from the previous incursion weren't doing their country's image any good.

Well, this is one way for Russians to opt out of those long gas lines.

The fuel shortage is leading to food shortages, even in Moscow, as trucks can't get fuel to make deliveries.

Watch the biggest Wildberries hub in Russia burning. That's a lot of smoke.

Russia is equipping its tanks with a new active defense system against drone attacks, but Ukrainians are still destroying them by overwhelming them with sheer numbers. These drones cost just a few hundred dollars each, while a tank costs millions.

Even if Israel elects a new prime minister instead of Netanyahu, it won't make the haters any less hateful.

Hamas is using a Gaza hospital as a torture and interrogation center.

Iran is rebuilding its military power much faster than Israel and the US expected it would be able to.

Members of the Basij militia, the Iranian regime's internal army of thug enforcers, are afraid of being publicly identified. There is also a lot of concern about "social pressure" on Basij members and other regime supporters to switch to the opposition to avoid "social rejection". That certainly sounds like the regime has almost no support in the general society.

Water-guzzling data centers are being built in arid areas of India, where local people already struggle to get enough water.

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

My posts this week: some truths and inspirations, a Bill Maher video on Western values, my twentieth blogiversary, and a peculiarity of the English language.

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Does anyone else think Natalie Harp bears a certain resemblance to Ivanka?

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Stop calling the US a "nation of immigrants". Most Americans are not immigrants. I was born here -- my parents were immigrants, I am not. The status of being an immigrant is not inheritable.

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"Is a fetus a human being?" is a question forced-birthers use to distort morality in their favor. Yes, a human fetus is made of human organic material, just as a fingernail clipping or an extracted tooth is. It is not a person in any morally meaningful sense, which is what is relevant to the abortion issue.

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