You bring up a good point, but I don’t think religion necessarily involves the kind of unreality I have in mind.

A lot of religious claims deal with things that are unfalsifiable. Invisible forces, unreachable gods, consciousness after death, things like that. Not the most rational stuff in the world, but not obviously false on the face of it either.

Now, though, we’ve got folks believing things that are easily disproven. Climate change denial, anti-vaccine bullshit, the never-ending parade of moral panics churned out by the above mentioned propaganda machine, Jewish space lasers, pet eating immigrants, etc.

I won’t go so far as to say that religion never causes people to deny observable reality; it surely does. But I think the right wing media empire we have now does so intentionally and on a scale greater than any religious movement I can think of.

The bad news: The most evil people in the world spend billions every year on the largest propaganda machine in the history of man, and it enthralls a large minority of us.

The good news: That’s what it takes to maintain this! This many people living in a bubble of unreality is not natural! It is the product of a machine built by man, and all machines built by man are destined to eventually fail. Maybe the right person dies at the right time. Maybe the conflict between their narrative and reality eventually becomes too much. Maybe they lose control of the story and the movement splinters into hundreds of contradictory conspiracy theories that no longer move in lockstep. Maybe the magic just wears off one day.

He also loves money and has no principles. People doing something because they have values is just not something he understands.

Fun facts!

85% of people arrested with fentanyl at the border as U.S. citizens.

The vast majority of people arrested here for trafficking children are U.S. citizens (and children are over 3x more likely to be trafficked by an acquaintance or relative than they are a random kidnapper).

“Illegal aliens” commit less crime than natural born U.S. citizens.

Violent immigrants, perverted trans people, and incompetent DEI hires are all moral panics. You hear so much about them because the Republican party has nothing to offer that will make your life safer or easier.

I keep getting recruiters sending me in-office jobs on the other side of the country and not even telling me the salary range. You’re asking me to break my lease, uproot my family, and leave behind all my local friends. If your salary is low enough that you don’t want to advertise it up front, why would I ever even consider doing all that?

The media is gonna spin things no matter what. Dems should not let that stop them.

It burns my ass that some folks actually bought the whole “Trump doesn’t support Project 2025” bullshit. I cannot imagine being such a gullible, credulous moron.

When you throw darts with the crossbow equipped, its special effect takes place. You just use the darts like you would any other throwing weapon. IIRC every shop should have at least a couple darts for sale.

I spent all afternoon reading that comic, having to call it a night on chapter 93. Thanks for the link!

1. Rape does not always involve physically overpowering someone. Someone may coerce someone else into sex with blackmail, lies, threats, or abuse of a position of power.

2. Erections are controlled by a person’s autonomic nervous system. A man can get hard even when he is not turned on or consenting to what is happening.

3. Not all rape involves a penis. A woman who sticks an object into a man without his consent is committing rape. Rape is about power and control over another person, and the rapist need not be directly stimulated for rape to occur.

Unconfirmed btw

The RPD pointed out that an attorney for the Abbouds had released home security footage of the raid online, which the police said made releasing the body camera footage redundant. At the same time, the RPD claimed that releasing the body camera footage might expose confidential information about search warrant execution or damage officers’ reputations.

You busted in a door and pointed an AR-15 at a baby. Your reputation should be fucking damaged.

Raleigh police “wrongfully executed a ‘Quick Knock’ warrant”—meaning they kicked in the door before the Abbouds had a chance to open it[…]

This is just a no-knock raid. Let’s not pretend knocking on a door a half second before pulling out the battering ram is some magical third category of warrant: no-knock raids should be banned, and whatever the fuck these cops did should be considered a no-knock.

It’s kinda exhausting seeing progressive language constantly used to rag on men. I want men to be anti-racist / feminist / LGBT allies / etc. I get that there are a lot of problems with many streams of masculinity and people who have been hurt by those have a right to complain, but goddamn. I would not expect lots of women to be attracted to a movement that constantly complains about women.

Tools that use a GUI are just as good (if not better) than their CLI equivalents in most cases. There’s a certain kind of dev that just gets a superiority complex about using CLI stuff.