The only way this gig is ethically justifiable is if the support act is a guillotine.

Obviously there’s a proxy war between russia and the west in ukraine, but I don’t think the US wants a long attritional war.

They could have done more to not end up in one, but I think escalation management really is driving a lot of decisions in washington.

In parliamentry systems you can dissolve parliament, requiring an election. It’s usually a way to bypass deadlock. Imagine if, when republicans are fucking around with the debt ceiling and pissing off the country, you could threaten to call a snap election and let them answer to voters then and there.

So if this passes it would basically force a national referendum on netanyahu’s leadership.

If gantz is pushing this, probably he thinks he can win. That could mean netanyahu’s many financial and political crimes being looked into again. Maybe.

It could mean more of a focus on getting hostages back, but it might not lead to much change in gaza:

Gantz’ centrism is not equivalent to Western centrism: Natenyahu’s Likud party and other Israeli nationalists have “gone so right-wing that the center in Israel has changed,” a Middle East Institute think tank fellow told Al Jazeera. Previously serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Israeli Defense Forces, Gantz has overseen two military offensives in Gaza and labeled several Palestinian NGOs terrorist organizations, indicating it is “unlikely” he would improve the conditions for Palestinians living in Gaza

The d&d game summoning the devil was always my favorite. Always love a d&d episode.

Also any one where the pope is shown in league with someone unlikely - communists, jews, muslims, etc.

Curl up in a ball and weep a salty creek.

I always took them all whenever I found them - horrible things, I love them covers it perfectly.

But also, I wouldn’t just leave a kitchen knife lying in public. Most people can be trusted to safely avoid the danger. But what if a child, or someone intent on harm found it?

The responsible thing to do is to remove the threat from the environment.

Are people not familiar with Chick Tracts? These comics are the product of the prodigous paranoid right wing evangelical conspiracy theorist Jack Chick (1924-2016).

I think these comics are best understood as the work of an outsider artist, like Henry Darger or a painting elephant. His work allows you to glimpse a mind outside the normal human experience.

His work focuses on who is going to hell - everyone who’s not a right wing american protestant, and many who are. It shows a strong pornographic influence - many end in a blissful face dowsed in a baptismal money-shot.

It’s meant to be used as a legitimate tool to evangelize. The worst christian lunatics leave these things in public, earnestly believing that after reading you’ll realize the divinely ordained truth that freemasons will all burn in hell along with blood-drinking rothschilds and D&D players.

Bauxite is the obvious one. Bringing bauxite to Australia. How could you forget about bauxite?

“oppressed profitability” is a fucking brutal turn of phrase.

I was just having a discussion with my family about recent union wins in the US, and when something good is a sign of how bad things must be. I suggested that there must be a german word for it, and my sister suggested maybe a chinese saying.

If you like the category of ‘things that sound like german has a word for it’, look into the 4-character chinese sayings called chengyu. One of my favourites is ‘Melon Patch, Under Plum’, meaning something that is completely innocent but should be avoided because it looks really sketchy. Don’t tie your shoes in a melon patch or fix your hat under a plum tree.

I read an article years ago, maybe like a decade ago, of some game industry person saying it was a cycle:

Incredible new graphics come out and people will buy the shiny regardless of anything else, then slowly they have to start making actually good games with those graphics to sell, then incredible new graphics come out and you don’t need to bother with story for a while.

That headline really is a thing of beauty. It’s like finding out that your trash is piling up because the city retasked all the sanitation workers to lie in fields of filth and create a heavenly host of garbage angels.

I generally recoil from comparing biden to putin but this really requires russian levels of post-truth politics.

Israel is committing war crimes like trump commits all his crimes - openly, in public and shielded by US elites.

I can’t not read that in a garbled south african accent.

Yikes, just looked at your profile. A supporter of both capitalism and authoritarianism?

I’ve never seen anyone so eager to tell the world that they are Neutral Evil.

Russia has said multiple times that they are a threat to NATO. Pretending otherwise is as childish as pretending this isn’t a proxy war between NATO and Russia.

If you’re going to defend Russia, at least try not to contradict Russia.

Uber is a bad faith actor, their business model is entirely monopoly-seeking. If they’re trying to expand into bus routes, the goal will be to reduce the choices available to just Uber.

Part of the problem is hyperactive agency detection - the same biological bug/feature that fuels belief in the divine.

If a twig snaps, it could be nothing or someone. If it’s nothing and we react as if it was someone, no biggie. If it was someone and we react as if it was nothing, potential biggie. So our brains are bias towards assuming agency where there is none, to keep us alive.

Neither Iraq war nor Afghanistan benefited the US, they were both colossal wastes of national resources for little gain, beginning a period of imperial decline. Korea I’m not as familiar with but Vietnam is now a bi-word for a pointless quagmire.

I always thought of romney as the republican’s plan C. If White Supremacy fails, and More White Supremacy fails, then they might try Quieter White Supremacy.