You know that not knowing something and not knowing the context around that thing often go together, right?

That’s kind of the conclusion this article comes to. The author likes Bazzite because it’s an immutable distro, which makes it feel like a console (in a good way), not because of any performance benefits.

The Wilhelm Scream! It’s from the 50s, but it actually got broad popularity due to its use in Star Wars. There’s a podcast episode about it where they track it down: https://www.20k.org/episodes/wilhelmscream

Someone needs to reread xkcd #1053.

This has always been true, but it honestly feels more true than usual recently.

Oh, absolutely. People from the church I grew up in sometimes say such baffling things about socialism and communism. I want to tell them, “know how I learned about social economies? From Sunday afternoon pitch-in dinners. Even though there was going to be food there, people who could bring food still brought it! We all ate until we were sick, there was food left over, and it all tasted fantastic. Sure, we had to cut Elaine’s chess pie extra thin so that everyone could get a slice, but there was literally a vat of mashed potatoes and two whole turkeys.”

I’m a firm believer that if there is a God, he provided the tools and people to help his flock deal with modern problems. But people often turn away from using these tools or services :(

One of the most clear expressions of how I feel about such things is 411 years old:

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.”

It was originally written by Galileo Galilei, and it’s still as relevant now as it was then. This was made into a satire with the joke about the man on a rooftop during a flood who rejects a helicopter, a boat, and a raft, saying that “God will save me;” and who, after drowning, confronts God at the gates of Heaven, who answers his complaints, “I sent you a helicopter, a boat, and a raft, what more did you want?” The fact that something is available to believer and nonbeliever alike should be a cause for rejoicing, not for distrust.

Theologically speaking, God gave us sense, reason, and intellect; not the devil. Trained therapists and mental health professionals are gifts of God, whether they’re Christians or not. And, going back to healthcare for all, another gift of God is community; and being able to help one another as a group. But the conservative Christians have been hoodwinked by rich con men into believing that that’s socialism, and that mental health is wokeness.

Makes my blood boil.

The crazy thing is, I actually agree with you about your list, and that the US has told a fairy tale for the past two and a half centuries about how we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys, and so forth. But then

The Democrats are just as fascist

is just laughable in pretty much every conceivable way. Are they still bad? Yes! But have they sent a secret police around the country to tear “undesirables” out of their homes and send them to countries they’ve never been without due process? Are they currently plotting to overthrow the election or stay in power despite losing that election? Did they, in the past two years, allow an unelected billionaire to destroy entire government agencies by fiat?

Ah-ah-ah! I hear you saying “but they voted to approve ICE funding” or “but they didn’t do anything to stop any of it” or “but Obama deported a bunch of people too” or “Democratic gerrymandering”—no. I didn’t ask if they allowed it to happen. I didn’t ask for whatabouts. I asked if they were behind the worst, most criminal activities being perpetrated by the US government at this very moment. I asked if they are doing it now. Are they the prime movers?

No? Then you can’t say “just as fascist.” That might’ve been true ten years ago—actually, aside from the election fraud, it almost definitely was—and I could maybe even see an argument that their evil was in the same order of magnitude as recently as two years ago, but equating the two since Trump 2 is like comparing a viper bite to a meteor entering the atmosphere. They’re both imminently dangerous, sure, but the difference in the scale of damage would be almost laughable if the harm wasn’t currently in progress.

The country needs to be fixed. I don’t think the Democrats are going to do it. But I’m not going to do anything to aid the people who are going to make it more broken, so I’m going to leave off turning on people who will be on our team until after the existential threat to our loved ones and ourselves is past.

Agreed 100%. Even as a Christian myself, I avoid businesses with “Christian” in the name. At best it feels like they’re trying to say that they’re the “Jesus-y” choice. At worst it means they’re crooks trying to look legitimate. In either case they’re probably maga.

Agreed. My wife went upstairs a half hour ago and I remember what she’s wearing. But early on she stopped taking me clothes shopping because I just said “wow, you look great!” to everything she tries on, which is understandably unhelpful.

I wasn’t trying to do it. I legitimately think she looks great in everything. I’ve tried to be more aware and conscious of what she’s trying to do with her outfits in the past 16 years, though, so I can comment on it thoughtfully; but it requires a specific type of effort that I am sure comes easier and harder to some men.

Which is weird, because I remember seeing this comic in 2014, five years before AVIF. I only remember it because my wife and I joked about it in the hospital while our oldest son was being born, and he just turned 12.

A while back, I was listening to a podcast that apparently had a fairly sizable conservative Christian audience, because there were a good number of ads for Christian “Health Care Sharing Ministries,” into which subscribers pay a voluntary “share,” and from which they draw when they need it.

I don’t remember the specific language the ad used, but I do remember it saying something that sounded almost dangerously close to “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” I started laughing at that one.

Let’s maybe save the purity tests for when we’re not staring down the barrel of a fascist coup already in progress, eh?

Uh…

…“I’m AOC and I approve this message”?

The “apartment” is the middle of the desk.

VHY WAS THI:

NEME CROPF

:O CLOSELY??’

I know what you mean, but the Wikipedia article even says it’s “on the southeast coast of India.”

Well, I mean, he is wearing those purple shorts. Maybe they’re… battery shorts.

“Palpatine is targeting Mon Mothma. Where’s the stormtrooper outrage?”

The gamma does turn him green. Maybe that’s not just stylistic, maybe he’s photosynthesizing.