Gas prices mean nothing if you can take the train. Every time gas prices jump, people start thinking about alternatives. Might be pretty sick, actually.

If you’ve got better ideas, we need them, get out there and get on it. As it is, we’re sleepwalking into catastrophe.

Fucking embarrassing tbh. We’re going to decimate the global north because somebody said no to our ethnostate pal.

Be me American See shitty right wing government doing shitty right wing things. Sigh. I bet I know who’s behind this. Google the history of that government.

Greece was the first proxy war of the Cold war, with the US backing the Greek Monarchy, who were ultimately the victors.

We probably ran similar propaganda and right-wing violence campaigns there as we did across the global south. What a fucking surprise. Happy July 4th everyone.

So here’s my question: what happens when Israel finishes swallowing Palestine and there’s no more land left to steal? What then? Are they going to start shit with Jordan or Egypt to steal their land next? At what point does the US let them know that we’re not going to let them drag us into WW3 just because they need to steal some land.

Tbf, the Europeans have some pretty fucked cryptid lore, it’s just that they’re more chaotic neutral and less chaotic vengeance than the American variety. My favorite american cryptid is an old one you don’t hear much of anymore, and was born from Pacific NorthWest loggers: the Hide Behind. Basically, this mf stalks your shit and will always duck behind a tree when you turn to look at it; it’s fast enough to never be seen clearly, but you can just catch glimpses of it if you’re fast/lucky. Eventually, it catches and eats unwitting loggers who let it sneak up on them.

The thing that really kills me is that each of these donations is basically a raise that was denied, a health policy that was worsened, a law that was hollowed out. These are dollars made of the bones and cartilage that have been looted from our society. Democracy ™ brought to you by Acererak.

Paramedic here, this is still half of how it’s done for choking in small children and babies. Five back blows, flip, five chest thrusts.

I remember that the big remedy that free market evangelists propose to replace regulation is lawsuits. So people take them up on that, and suddenly it’s “NO, NOT LIKE THAT”. Go figure, who could’ve seen that coming, etc.

A video essay I watched pointed out that Harry Potter’s chief conflict is between old conservatism (the good guys ™) and new conservatism (the bad guys ™), and I will never ever unsee it.

To be fair, Hogwarts probably felt like a shit show for staff. Children are hard enough to deal with, I can’t imagine dealing with throngs of (largely wealthy and entitled) magic children. It’s pretty obvious that the only thing that kept Filch going was pure, unfiltered spite.

I think anon has it 100% correct. The instant Gabe is out of the picture, I expect to hear talk about how “you don’t understand, we have to fuck out users, won’t someone please think of the IPO?!”

Thanks, I’ll check these out later

Those tech bros are up to something

That’s interesting, can you share any evidence for that?

No problem. Can I ask why you’re interested?

I find that to be a pretty surprising take, given the theme of righteous poverty that runs through the gospel. Do you have any more evidence for that claim?

It was more than any one thing. There were a few big factors, though. One was that I spent a few years away from the US where I developed my very personal relationship with the gospel; when I came back to the US, it was very apparent to me that whatever churches were focused on in the US, it wasn’t the message of the gospel. Another was working as a paramedic for over a decade; something about confronting the multitude of human suffering and mortality that’s out there, just beneath the paint, led me to re-examine very fundamental beliefs for Christianity. I ended up recognizing that I no longer believed those things, and, in time, came to Buddhism. The last major factor was the community; it certainly feels as though Evangelical Christian Fascism has permeated nearly every church. As one example among many, I decided to give some churches a chance for a lark around the time that the SCOTUS made gay marriage legal, and one church that seemed to be pretty progressive opened with this really emotional video set to some Beatles music about civil rights, only to reveal at the end that it was about Christians and how Christians are being oppressed by gay people being allowed to marry, and followed that up by getting on stage and pleading with Jesus to end the world. For me, the will to leverage the government to force your religious convictions on others is both heretical and disgusting. But a lot of evangelicals will insist that their faith calls them to harass and oppress people (not in those terms ofc), and people who don’t share those views aren’t real Christians. I came to the conclusion that there was no place for my faith in a church like that.

Anyone who’s actually sat down and drank deeply from the New Testament (Paul can get rekt, all my homies know Paul co-opted Jesus’ message) knows that love, acceptance, and tolerance (except for the money changers) was how Jesus rolled. And he didn’t go around telling people how cool he was and asking for cash and political power; he rolled up and helped people, challenged social, religious, and legal power structures, and on multiple occasions told the people he helped to keep quiet about it. As a former Christian who was deeply fond of the gospel, there is nothing that I see in the American evangelicals movement that I would categorize as Christian in the sense of being Christ-like. It’s got all the flashy trappings, all the 100 foot tall steel girder crucifixes and fancy pastors, huge campuses and ad campaigns that cost vast amounts of money, and so on, but there’s no more of the spirit (not in a paranormal sense) of the gospel in those places than there is in a Wal-Mart super center parking lot.

The people going to Evangelical services don’t feel that way about them, but having been in those places while I was Christian, it is my belief that what they’re doing and following is really something else. And I don’t mean that it’s low-key devil worship or anything weird like that, I mean it’s McChristianity. Fast faith for people who like their thoughts pre-chewed and neutered of all danger.

I wonder if the investors are happy yet