Mikko Rautalahti

Ahh, fuck. I’m sorry, man.

I like that time. I find it interesting (well, maybe not _interesting,_ that'd be overstating it; let's call it kinda amusing) that it's the polar opposite of one of my favorite moments in the year, which is in the spring and I'm outside and I realize I have to take my coat off because it's too hot.

I read like a month of the recent strips and holy shit, dude's got a lot of diarrhea rolling around in that brain. He's now comfortably operating on a level where the strip's like a mythic battle of racist caricatures to such a confusing degree that it's genuinely hard to say who he _doesn't_ hate.

Fucking Sipilä.

But not necessarily more scary, though. Your example sounds more aggro and... I dunno, potentially more prone to sudden violence. That carries a big payload of unknowns. Ultimately, the letter thing was more sad than anything -- it didn't feel that way at the time, but looking back on it now...

Trust me, you're good!

Yeah, that's the one, I know we've talked about it before!

I've seen this kind of stuff before, unfortunately. It involved an international flight and a letter written in blood, among other things, so, y'know, just super healthy and not at all creepy activities.

Good luck with the invasive procedure!

A lot of actual mental illness out there. I feel like it's getting worse -- maybe not actually more prevalent, but more untreated and more easily triggered. It's not exactly enhancing anyone's calm.

Mindlessly scrolling earlier, I saw a video which contained the sentence "all culture war is a deliberate distraction from class war". Possibly the most succinct expression of the times we live in, and the problems we're facing.

I have read Douglas Smith’s Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs, and I liked it. I can’t really judge how accurate it is, but it’s more about historical context and whatnot than ”crazy stories about the mad monk” stuff, and I found it both good and interesting.

In most other democracies, if you hit a similar situation, the government fails and they're done. There are systems in place to manage the situation until a new government can be formed. That's a genuine crisis and the people in charge really want to avoid it. It comes with big consequences.

The government shutting down the way it does semi-regularly in the US is a bizarre phenomenon. The idea that vital systems that keep the country functioning just roll to a stop while a bunch of people who're supposed to be in charge see who can hold their breath the longest is nuts.

And by ”retain credibility” I don’t mean ”be respected by people whose head isn’t full of dogshit,” I mean that he can say that sort of stuff to a room full of people likely involved in actual firefights in Afghanistan without them immediately going ”fuck this clown, what the hell, I’m out.”

I guess when you let an obnoxious idiot lie to you about everything all the time without any meaningful criticism, let alone consequence, you end up in a situation where he can say insane shit like ”the capital of our country is more dangerous than Afghanistan ever was” and still retain credibility.

You just kind of have to... put up with a lot with Burroughs. He was very much a product of his time, and not a particularly enlightened product at that. I like a lot about his work. They are genuinely hard to read now.

The John Carter books are easier. The distance between Earth and Mars helps.

"some legal experts have called it a crime to summarily execute civilians" says today's New York Times, continuing their long tradition of whitewashing fascism

Absolute all-timer sentence in today's @nytimes.com

It's really a format that thrives on outrage, and that is just never going to be a healthy environment. (A lot of it is fake, of course, but even so.)

Today is my last day at Blizzard! Working with the World of Warcraft team has been such a fun, positive experience. I can't wait for players to see what we made together. Now I'm looking for my next role in games, full time or contract, indie or AAA. You can check out my portfolio on my website! 🖤

That whole "Jigsaw but legal" vibe is no joke.

And to be fair, it's not just him -- a lot of the reality show market is based on the same concept. You put people in a cage of one kind or another and then you ogle their distress and hope they make fools of themselves. It's not great on any level.

Classic good time and wisdom vibes!

I can’t leave him alone, we’re on the buddy system.

hey Justin real quick are you huffing gas again because I’m getting that old ”somebody’s about to commit narrative atrocities” feeling

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My friend Heidi is in one of those truly dark stretches of life where the bottom just drops out from under you. If you can help at all, it would make a real, substantial difference to somebody going through something very difficult and fundamentally life-changing.

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I have had the same e-mail address since 1997, so it’s now 28 years old. I’ve been getting spam in it for longer than many of ny co-workers have been alive.

I don’t know that I can do a lot with this perspective.

Glad to hear it's all good!

a man in a tank top says i 'm the in a bar ALT: a man in a tank top says i 'm the in a bar

There’s now an entire generation out there whose only context for Danny DeVito may be Frank Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny. Feels kinda wild to me.

That’s not a tragedy; DeVito’s commitment to the bit and his note-perfect performance would just by themselves be a hell of a legacy.

Still, though…

So it kind of comes down to the basic question of "are the masses prospering." If there's increasing unemployment and people are having trouble obtaining health care or education, or they have legitimate concerns about being able to afford food/shelter, I think it's fairly obvious they are not.

This conversation was started by Aleksi, so his definition's probably the more relevant one. Still, the key word here is "masses," which I think has to refer people of a similar class status who make up the largest group within a country. So that excludes both the homeless and the rich, for example.