The paradox of being an antitheist is that you have to believe that religious ideas are uniquely powerful and dangerous. Politics, history, culture, and all context are just debris drifting in the mighty river of religion.

Were do viruses fit in the “tree of life”?

If you think people are stubborn for sticking with Youtube and Reddit, just think how many people cling to the belief that customers control corporations by voting with their money.

Just a tiny push-back here: The political philosophy of the founding of America did depend on the 18th Enlightenment, but it also has roots in the 17th century Protestantism of the English Civil War.

Specifically ideals like “Equality before the State”, separation of Church and State, and universal (male) suffrage, have a direct through-line to anti-monarchist, anti-Catholic, radical Puritanism.

I’m no David Barton, but America didn’t fall out of a coconut tree.

What toppings? Are we talking fresh Moz? White sauce? This is very important.

Is this just a stealth “cellphone bad” comic?

I hope he does run: for inmate trustee of the month.

There has been a lot of coverage about how state Republican organizations have been taken over by MAGA. The result has been incompetence, mismanagement, and an alienation from the “elites” who we used to call the “donor class”.

I’m too old to be optimistic, but Trump sure looks like the leader of a loosing campaign.

Meanwhile, Putin is going to visit Twitter (formally X) to thank all the people who are helping his war effort.

There is no amount of training, experience, or ability that can prevent gun accidents.

Other activities that are life/death like surgery or airline piloting use checklists because they know that training, experience, and ability are not enough. Making rules like “a gun is always loaded” or “careful where you point that thing”, are not sufficient because instead of solving human fallibility, they ignore it.

I’d go further and say that these “rules” are more mantra than procedure. A kind of protection spell that’s spoken more than it’s followed. These spells are cast in a flurry every time someone has an accident. Not to reinforce the lesson, but to reassure that we’re not going to get hurt.

Regardless of what you do, the people you love will get hurt, suffer, and die. You’re going to have to let that go, or you’ll be the one suffering. If you want to protect your loved ones, buy insurance.

Is there a way to learn this power?

This isn’t a rule. Some bureaucrat was mistaken.

The same thing happened to another girl a couple weeks ago.

Why does this article make the US sound like a battered wife in the situation? We’ll just go along and hope for the best!

This isn’t a partizan issue, just like immigration, Democrats are fucking horrible on homelessness too.

The problem with this “econ101” thinking is that it insists that the whole system runs on the choices of actors in a deterministic system.

Keanu must really believe in this stuff because we know he’s no good at pretending.

If you read the article, this is minor plagiarism. Four sections, of about 2 paragraphs each have been shown to be copied. However, the content copied were factual: dates and definitions, not ideas or the thesis. It’s reasonable that all of this is explained by the bad sourcing of an ameture author.

Take each article one by one and look into the source

This is a page out of the conspiracy playbook. We commonly weigh material for bias with no evidence or reasonable justification. A paper confirming climate change seems more credible if it was funded by Exxon than if it were paid for by Green Peace.

This generates exactly the kind of “just so” reasoning that underpins all of conspiracy theory. It literally the belief that powerful forces are manipulating everything from the shadows.

MURICA: Civic pride in the local shooting.