Speaking as a cult survivor here, cults can be surprisingly resilient when they have a clear order of succession, regardless of the popularity of the current leader. If they have a rigid hierarchy and clear authority transferred by the cult leader, they can effectively project that power to an extremely personal level. (ex. Mormons, traditionalist Catholics, North Korea, the CCP, Scientology)

However, MAGA doesn’t have a clear and organized hierarchy, just a blob of figureheads vying for Trump’s addlebrained reins. I think it will splinter and they’ll do what fascists do best and eat each other as soon as they have no clear target for their rabid fervor. It’ll probably fragment into its base white supremacist hate groups and those splinters will embed themselves deeper into the flesh of the body politic. They’ll sprout again as a new ugly weed in another 30 years.

MAGA has all the ingredients for a long-term presence as a political cult. The words feel disgusting to type, but I’m kinda glad that his assassination attempts failed. Martyring him would have made him immortal to his followers, it likely would have made JD Vance a more attractive figure. He would have been able to consolidate power while his predecessor was still popular. Just look what happened to the Mormons after Joseph Smith got his ass shot to hell in Missouri.

Ace enby lesbian here. I generally feel the same way. I’m attracted to femininity, equipment really doesn’t factor into how I feel about a woman. Or about femme-presenting people in general. I just think girls are pretty.

As a person with some pretty serious mental health issues, this is hilarious. I’m stealing it.

First thing you do is find a public library. If the concept of a public library exists in this reality, you’re likely not completely fucked.

If there is no public library, and no one has ever heard of one, you are DEFINITELY fucked.

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. If there was ever a voice of love and peace, it was a giant of a man with a giant’s heart. If I could bring one musician back from the dead, it would be the Hawaiian avatar of humankind’s best qualities.

But there may be a worthy successor to his voice.

I’ve been meaning to ask, what complaints do you have with open source DAWs? I know a lot of VST plugins just refuse to work in other programs, but what specifically do you miss the most?

Darkstone (1999) - Good game for a Diablo clone.

Debian-flavored Linux - My only complaints are hardware compatibility-related, and that is primarily because Nvidia and Intel both suck Microsoft’s floppy disk.

Krita, Gimp, Blender - Never needed another art program. Adobe can eat my paintbrush.

LibreOffice - I would literally have this over MSOffice any and every day of the week.

VLC - It just frickin’ works. And it’s good at its job. It plays anything!

Take the damn upvote, and get outta here.

Yeah, but it took them, like, three paragraphs of tooting their own horn before they got to the point.

(sigh) It’s not gonna be a ceasefire, because Israel doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

The culture I grew up in was as a Mormon in the Rocky Mountains. They don’t do matchmaking per se, but the Mormon church has specific congregations for specific phases of life. There are “family wards”, for Mormons who are married with kids, “seniors’ wards” in nursing homes and retirement homes so elders don’t have to travel as far for church on Sunday, and “Singles’ Wards”.

As soon as you turn 18, you basically get sentenced to Singles’ Ward until you manage to get a girlfriend/boyfriend. The cultural expectation is heavy enough that you’ll get a lot of weird looks if you’re still going to church with your parents as a 19-year old. Mormon churches are very activity-heavy, so during the week there will be a ton of church-sponsored group-date and double-date events. And because Mormons are really serious about the premarital chastity thing, they usually get married before they ever realize just how big a commitment that is.

I found out I was gay while I was in Singles’ Ward. Mormonism is a VERY homophobic religion. Things got awkward really, really fast.

Knife, taser, bulletproof backpack insert, laptop and charger, battery pack, water, compass, water purifier drops, small ocarina, granola bars, tin cup, fire starter, local maps, notebook and pencils, sharpies, light jacket, extra socks, hiking towel, first aid kit, floss, deodorant…

and a set of comedic emergency mustaches.

As an American, I hope they stonewall him. Let him and Bibi humiliate themselves.

Watch, their response is gonna be “Don’t let the front door hit you where the Good Lord split you.”

They’re not hippies. Real hippies tied themselves together across roads to protest the Vietnam war. They chained themselves to industrial equipment to protect nature.

These are not real hippies. They disappoint real hippies.

We’re working on it as fast as we can without getting shot.

Wow. That is clever wordplay. Thanks for that, I never would have picked up on it. 👍

You know what makes me happy? They settled out of court because the fans said, “We love them both!”

That said, B5 will always have a very soft spot in my heart.

Deep Space Nine ripped off Babylon 5. Fans love them both, because instead of one sci-fi political drama on a space station, we got two!