Link round-up for 8 August 2026

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

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Sometimes even dogs go too fast.

She died and went to Heaven, but found it unsatisfactory.

He surely gets great gas mileage.

Check out some dumb detectives, nosy nuns, and miscellaneous cartoons.

You cannot keep this woman in a headlock.

It's a Chinese street fight between lobsters and clams.

Cats have things their own way.

They suspected her of being a witch, but.....

In my opinion, the Pepsi-Cola company still owes this guy a fighter plane.

Not sure what's going on here, but I'd suggest not doing it.

This map shows each state's alleged claim to fame.  I'm a tad suspicious of some of them.

This is vandalism.  That poor house.

It wasn't dinner, but.....

The best moments in life are free.

What if Cinderella had been an ethical person?

Here are some more cringe TV commercials from the 1970s.

It's never too early to start stocking up for Halloween.

See some aggressively odd-looking buildings (NSFW blog, requires Blogspot login).

That'll teach you not to tailgate, dumbass.

British TV is more realistic than American.

Spend a bit of time on dustsceawung.

Here's a spooky little story.

Johnny Profane finds a couple of autistic-coded TV characters.

The caryatid statues on the acropolis of Athens exemplify the beauty and endurance of ancient Greek sculpture.

A new museum documents the life of Eli Cohen, a courageous spy.

Here's a detailed comparison of Proton VPN and NordVPN.

If you're using an app to get meds for chronic dongwilt and other intimate medical issues, Meta may be spying on you.

This 1948 warning about propaganda is still useful today.

People in Oregon and nearby, watch out for yellowjackets.

Snapchat spies on you with "AI".

You can't always rely on "adversarial clothing".

BMW is pestering its customers with on-screen ads in their cars.  Many are not happy.  I will never buy one of these modern pieces of shit.

Maybe we need sexier scientists.

Opposition to surveillance cameras is bringing together people from across the political spectrum, much as the anti-data-center resistance does.

Remember, it's not only Flock -- there are several companies that make these cameras.

Male forced-birth politicians are pervs who get off on degrading women, like molesters or porn hounds.

This man cannot be guilty -- he has such a good alibi.

Three surveillance cameras were destroyed in Auburn CA.

Winona MN had eight surveillance cameras.  All eight of them were destroyed over just two days.

Charges have been filed against two school officials who failed to report the sexual assault on girl wrestler Kallie Keeler.  So much for the scumbags who claimed there was no sexual assault here.  Now make sure they suffer to serve as an example to others.

OpenAI paid a bunch of "influencers" to promote its stuff.  The scheme backfired big.

On the other hand, "AI" has its own influencers to give garbage advice.

Three mothers in Houston are suing against Texas's law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms.

Dozens of people are getting arrested for peacefully protesting against data centers.

New Orleans is using "AI" to triage incoming calls, creating a delay for callers with emergencies to reach a real human dispatcher, if they can get to one at all.  People are going to die because of this.

More surveillance cameras here.  If you approve of this because it's a gun range, you lose your right to complain when they spy on something you do.  Left or right, we must all stand against this.

The Republican harassment of Dr Fauci is a witch-hunt by the scientific ignorantsia.

Young Hispanics are abandoning religion faster than any other US demographic group, with women leading the way.  This reflects the similar trend in Latin America itself.

There might be an underlying pattern here, but it's just too hard to tell for sure.

Minnesota's ban on creating fake nude images of people without their consent is now in effect, despite xAI's efforts to block it.

Google plans to destroy protected wetlands in Indiana to build a data center.

The movement to get men and boys out of women's and girls' sports is reaching a tipping point, with public support now at 80%, and people increasingly refusing to be bullied into silence.  Colorado, Washington, and Arizona will hold referenda on the issue this November.  Now that Sophie Cunningham has become known as a new face of the movement, her branded shoes sold out within hours of going on sale.

Jews are 10% of New York City's population, but are the target of 70% of the hate crimes.

Workers' share of economic output is shrinking this year, as it has been doing for decades.

More than half of the young women who grew up in the Mormon religion have left it.

Blogger Bilbo has some ideas on reforming the US government (see my comment too).

California's Democratic party executive board has endorsed the state's union-backed billionaire tax initiative, defying billionaire-toady governor Newsom.

The anti-Trump resistance shows some strength even in rural Nebraska -- where Dan Osborn's independent Senate candidacy also seems to be doing well.

What an asshole.  And that is not an apology.

Residents swarmed a city council meeting in Salem OR to oppose a planned data center.  Some of them brought a guillotine along, perhaps reflecting the billionaires-vs-masses aspect of the conflict.

"In another age, you'd have been among the most enthusiastic witch-hunters, and then, as now, you'd be utterly convinced of your unimpeachable rectitude."

Mamdani clone Abdul El-Sayed, "the most anti-Semitic US Senate candidate in America", has won the Democratic nomination in Michigan, yet another alarming sign about the direction of the party.  Still, the news is not all bad.  He won by barely 1%, not the double-digit margin the polls had predicted (he didn't even get an actual majority since 4% of the vote went to Mallory McMorrow, who had withdrawn) -- and Michigan has a high concentration of Muslim voters, giving him an advantage that similar candidates would not have in most other states.  There's grounds for hope that the Republican, Mike Rogers, will be able to defeat El-Sayed in November -- Republicans openly said that he's the opponent they hoped for, much easier to beat than his pro-Israel rival Haley Stevens would have been.

Pro-Israel Wesley Bell overwhelmingly defeated "Squad" nutjob Cori Bush for the nomination for Missouri's First Congressional District.  The district is heavily Democratic, so Bell is sure to win in November.

Cindy Holscher, an "anti-establishment populist" who supports a moratorium on data centers, has won the Democratic nomination for governor of Kansas.  Despite being a very red state, Kansas sometimes elects Democratic governors, including the current governor.

It was a good week for abortion rights.

Democratic congressman Justin Pearson of Tennessee is emerging as a leader in the anti-data-center movement.  This may even get him enough Republican voter support to stay in office despite the recent gerrymander of his district intended to get rid of him.

Colorado Republicans are using an "AI"-faked image of a Jewish political candidate depicting him with demonic horns.

It's not just Twitter -- Meta too is a cesspit of kiddie porn.  More billionaire news at the link.

Surveillance cameras aren't even much good for fighting crime.  Apparently they often misread license plates.

SpaceX says it will remove the air-polluting gas turbines powering its data center near Memphis TN, which it doesn't have permits for -- but the last of them won't be gone until July 2027.  They don't have permits.  Why are these people being allowed to break the law with impunity for a year?  Send the cops in, shut down and remove the damn turbines, and if SpaceX's people object, arrest them.  No special privileges for the billionaire's company.

Mamdani got a tough reception in Staten Island.

The Lake Tahoe area, suffering from a dangerous bear infestation, uses specialized dogs to condition them to avoid humans.  There are only two such dogs available, however.

This investment company bet everything on "AI".  Now it's totally buggered.

The world has learned to ignore Trump's threats and bluster.

A simple typo in a police document resulted in an innocent man spending a year and a half in prison.

"By the time the public notices, the new rule is presented as settled practice rather than a political choice that should have been debated."

The UK Labour party is finally coming to its senses on the trans nonsense -- as in the US, people are just refusing to be bullied into silence any more.  The writer mentions four unions still guzzling the kool-aid, but the problem is most likely just the leaders of those unions, not the rank-and-file.

In Germany, about ten thousand people have died from excessive heat so far this year.

The Moroccans who swarmed into Ceuta last weekend were just seeking a better life.

Even Luxembourg, one of the world's smallest countries, is donating to support Ukraine.

Ukraine gives some help to Hungary during the latter's energy crisis.

In the Perm region of Russia, this truck spectacularly exploded, for reasons not yet known.

Two Ukrainian cruise missiles hit a military plant in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad).

See Ukrainian attacks on a Russian fuel truck convoy and a fully-loaded missile launcher.

This is the Wildberries warehouse in Novosemeykino, near the Kazakhstan border, after a Ukrainian attack.  A massive plume of smoke from the fire filled the sky over the city.  Here's another such warehouse near St Petersburg; in fact, it was not completely destroyed, so more drones will be needed.

Here's what Russia's supply route to occupied Crimea looks like.

This is/was the oil refinery at Saratov.

Apparently the water quality in Russia is terrible.

Sex-segregated education is a very bad idea for Israel, making it less like the West and more like the backward Islamic states.  If women don't have equal educational opportunities, some of the best might even emigrate.

Israel warned Trump that if his planned new wave of airstrikes didn't focus on regime-change targets, there was little point in doing them at all.

The Iranian regime now has the upper hand over Trump in any negotiation, and is well positioned to weaken and humiliate him.

The Iranian regime doesn't understand the rising generation.

The Turkic states of central Asia are cozying up to Israel.

The recent mass protests in India led to a new display of the Modi government's bullying and arrogance.

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

My posts this week:  some truths and inspirations, the video Sur le quai, and some recommended news sources.

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"Vote blue no matter who" is just "my country right or wrong" on the level of a mere political party rather than a nation.  In both cases, applying it without regard to the details of the particular situation could lead to supporting some pretty awful things.

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In 1991, when anti-Semite and former KKK "grand wizard" David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana as a Republican, the party repudiated him and major Republican figures such as president Bush vigorously denounced him.  This week, after Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate nomination in Michigan, prominent Democratic figures rallied around him -- even some like Buttigieg whom I would have expected to know better.  Only a few, such as Fetterman, had the guts to speak out against him.

This may be a sign of the degeneration of politics in general over time.  I'm not at all sure that today's Republicans would repudiate a candidate like David Duke either.

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If all smartphones suddenly stopped working, it would have a massive impact on how people live and do things.  If all e-mail systems suddenly stopped working, it would have a massive impact on how people live and do things.  If all toilets suddenly stopped working, it would have a massive impact on how people live and do things.  If all "AI" systems suddenly stopped working, it would have absolutely no impact on anything.  At the most, it would become less easy to cheat at school or to create fake porn pictures of Taylor Swift.  "AI" is not a revolutionary technology.  It isn't doing anything that matters, and will never be able to do anything that matters.

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Some humans.  Dud humans.

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