That’s how they get you. They prey on people who don’t understand math.

That is still the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.

The guerilla marketing around the film was absolutely genius. I knew it wasn’t real, but I was already immersed in the world for weeks before the release.

I was genuinely terrified at the end of the movie. We went home and I made my fiancé (now husband) watch Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with me so I could get to sleep. I had nightmares for weeks.

The folk music in A Mighty Wind may be greater than the Swans’ screen time. And that music is extremely white.

But the meltdown over Busy Bee can definitely count for double.

I saw Ghoulies at a babysitter’s house when I was 6. It was the first remotely scary thing I had ever been exposed to.

It opens with a satanic occult ritual. This was peak Satanic Panic, and my Assembly of God church was teaching me that Satan was real and people who worshipped him were actually performing ritual sacrifice. So in my little-kid perception, it was basically a documentary.

I had nightmares about it until I left the church in my early 20s. As part of my deconstruction process, I watched the film and saw how ridiculous it really was.

That’s a hell of an assumption you’re starting with.

There are quite a lot of philosophers who would say that free will doesn’t exist (we call them determinists). I’d wager that plenty of them would posit that consciousness exists. It’s hard to talk about our experience of the world without consciousness.

I don’t know many MAGA voters who are 18-26.

I know a lot of them who are 65+, though. We can’t blame NCLB for their idiocy.

It’s a specific tactic that politicians use. “Tommy” sounds more approachable than “Tom” or “Thomas.”

This is why we know Charles Schumer as “Chuck” and Addison McConnell III as “Mitch.” The folksy name feels friendlier and therefore gets more votes.

I appreciate your comment, because it points out that what I thought was unhinged fan fiction that I should skip is actually unhinged fan fiction written by a word-prediction machine, and therefore even less deserving of my time and attention.

The GOP operative wasn’t willing to disavow militant Christians, so he didn’t think El-Sayed would disavow militant Muslims.

What a dumbass.

The partisan purity tests on the left are a big part of the reason why Republicans keep winning general elections.

Republican policies are bad for anyone who isn’t rich. Their party is literally promoting fascism at this point. But somehow the fact that a Democrat isn’t 100% what you want them to be means you should stay at home and not vote?

Be advised that the thing Republican voters are best at is falling in line. They will vote for a candidate they actively hate … as long as that candidate has an R next to their name on the ballot.

The time for purity tests is the primary. Vote for non-AIPAC, pro-trans candidates then. Cast your ballot for the person who best represents your interests. Actively campaign for them and convince everyone you meet to vote for them.

But in a general election, if you refuse to vote because you don’t like the Democrat (with whom you agree on 80% of issues), you’re ceding the choice of representative for your state or district to the people who will vote Republican no matter what. And I doubt you will agree with even half of that person’s votes.

You might feel like you’ve done something valuable and righteous, but all you’ve really done on a practical level is make it easier for the right-wing candidate to win a majority.

Even if you’re not enthusiastic about voting for the Democrat, you can feel good about voting against the Republican.

I haven’t been excited about voting for a lot of people in my life, but I am still quite proud of the fact that my vote helped a dead man beat John Ashcroft for a seat in the Senate.

Politicians in AIPAC’s pocket count as “corporate shills” in my book.

Many of the top Democrats are bought and paid for, they don’t make people’s lives better, and people should stop voting for them.

But the place for your protest vote is in the primaries, where you actually have a better choice. In a general election where your choices are Corporate Democrat or Fascist Republican, the two are simply not interchangeable.

People who make that false equivalence and discourage voting because “both sides are the same” have exacerbated the general apathy that has enabled the Republican party to push American political discourse farther and farther to the right for the past 30 years.

This is a real problem. US politics has turned into a team sport where “our side” and “their side” are supposed to be enemies fighting for dominance instead of working together for the common good. Voter loyalty to the political team is prized regardless of the real-life result that the team achieves. Critical thinking is actively discouraged and propaganda dictates the perception of reality.

The challenge is how we break that propaganda bubble and get people to hold their politicians to a minimum standard of actually improving the lives of their constituents.

A lot of people say they have deprogrammed their family members through a long process of good-faith discussions and targeted debunking of conspiracy theories or false reporting. Some have used chatbots to educate their loved ones or even manipulated algorithms to show fewer partisan conspiracies and more factual information.

Cults famously fall apart when their leaders die, and the leader of America’s most dangerous political cult is no spring chicken. It’s possible that the blinders will fall away pretty quickly after he’s gone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t – or shouldn’t – attempt to make progress where we can in the meantime.

Do you not understand that incremental change is possible without revolution? There’s a middle ground between “maintain the status quo” and “overthrow the government.”

If you were born in this century, you haven’t ever seen evidence that Congress can actually pass legislation that makes our lives better. It used to happen, and I believe it can happen again if we can elect people who aren’t corporate shills.

There was a time when people like Mamdani weren’t the exception and political figures actively tried to make life better for all of their constituents. That should be our expectation, and anyone who doesn’t deliver should lose re-election.

Why is it ok to refuse to use 1 tool, but not the other?

I think it’s okay that some of us want to exercise our rights but draw the line at breaking the law.

If you want to blow up (or even give up) your own life for the cause, that’s your choice. It’s not mine.

The person you responded to is likely either (a) Russian or (b) old enough to remember what parts of the USSR were called … or © both.

Here’s some info in case anyone doesn’t know why we would make a distinction between Ukraine and “the Ukraine.”

Imagine having such a fragile faith that you have to kill anyone who makes an offensive comment about it.

People who are strong in their faith can hear and discuss challenges without resorting to violence.

How long until the Christian Nationalist Republican Party imposes the death penalty for offenses against Supply-Side Jesus?

It’s been decades since I lost my faith, but I would love the absolute irony of this if it turned out to be true.

We thought we had found the bottom of the political barrel back in those days.

We were wrong.

I am a homeroom teacher in a primary school (private school, not in the US). Homeroom teachers at my school have 4 hours a day with our students. In the lower grades, we teach “core subjects” (math, reading, writing, science and social studies) in three of those four hours, and the other hour is social-emotional team building and language activities (speaking/listening and some phonics). In the upper grades each teacher is in charge of teaching one subject for the whole grade level, so I teach math for three hours and then I have the social-emotional/language hour with my homeroom class.

The other hours of the day are what some schools call “related arts” or “special area” classes – music, art, PE, etc. Our students also have a 30-minute lunch break and 70 minutes of recess time over the course of the day.

We follow US curriculum for the core academic subjects.

I absolutely believe that students can get through “what a kid learns in 7 hours of public school” in 3 hours of homeschool. School is designed to fill most of a work day so parents can work a full day, not because we have that much academic content to cover.

But I also know kids can miss out on some really important academic rigor (especially in math and science), socialization, and/or exposure to arts if their parents aren’t well-informed in their approach to homeschool.