houseoftolstoy @houseoftolstoy@merovingian.club

Knowing what I know about political corruption, I can never trust that any report of a politician being arrested for wrongdoing is done out of sincere adherence to the rule of law. Rather, I suspect many politicians only get any punishment by the law when they fall out of favor among the string pullers. They were already known to be guilty long before they were reigned in, but they simply pissed off the wrong people in power or did not have enough favor with the string pullers to be let off.

@Owl @Evil_Bender >IMO there are much better ways to evangelize

Are these "better ways" just staying within your church building, waiting for people to come to the building while never interacting with people outside of the building of the church

@deprecated_ii to a point you are correct. You'll have to take a guess on the intake and output of calories, and you have to just accept that there will be some margin of error.

But what is not nonsense is that you will lose weight if you limit how much you eat. You will not be able to defy thermodynamics when you eat at a deficit. It just so happens that fat people often underestimate how many calories they eat or will try to claim that their 500 calorie coffee from Starbucks "doesn't count."

@Humpleupagus @HEREWARD_SILVATICI I care very little whether or not the intentions of cases like these are out of genuine kindness or are out of pure self-interest. The results are increased happiness for the buyers, and that outcome is worth more than any well intended actions that result in bad outcomes.

Every sob story about federal employees I hear is always the same thing.

"I love the work that I do."

"My work is very important and we are fulfilling critical needs."

Of course they are going to say things like this. They really do believe that our country could not possibly function without their oh-so-important jobs. I am quite sure people will find a way to live on without these federal government jobs, though that may not be quite as true for the federal employees themselves.

@grey the influence of celebrities on elections is probably not as strong as many make it out to be. But the fact that some people will vote based on who someone famous endorses shows that there are some people who should never be voting in the first place. And many more should not be voting for other equivalent stupid reasons.

@Heil_Honkler @DireGoy I noticed this Sam Seder will often rely on shaming tactics as arguments, which is on full display here. But when he gets an opponent who feels no shame, his supposed debate ability is just not there.

"Trump is Christian Nationalist and is Xenophobic!"

"I wish he really was."

And "it's problematic" is just the most effeminite response you can get.

Fun fact that will rile up anyone who has Trump Derangement Syndrome: Donald Trump had the total votes for him increase in every time he has run for President.

When I used Reddit a while back, I happened upon a sub called ShitLiberalsSay. Little did I know that this was by no means a conservative space, but a full blown commie one. It was then I found out that commies see anyone not far left as a liberal, including both the Repulican voter and typical Democrat voter.

These are the kinds of zealots who think the Democrats are a "Far Right" party. Rich, considering Republicans at best are a moderate right party in practice.

A man has a paintbrush. He is not good at painting and he is approached by another man. He asks the man with the paintbrush if he could borrow his, since he is lacking one. The man with the paintbrush agrees to lend it to this man. This second man was a talented painter, and he created masterpiece painting.

When others see this work of art and are amazed, the first man in his envy states "The artist would have amounted to nothing without me! I gave him the paintbrush!"