Basalisk

Character reference sheet for Basalisk, showing three views, and details of his markings (green spirals on his chest and a branching 'psi' character on his back

Room for one more?

What is an "I"?

What exactly is "the sky"? Would an astronaut on the moon assign it the colour blue? What even is blue? Is your blue the same as my blue?

Meanwhile "gate" is not getting involved in the argument

At a certain point, if someone has been going to the Nazi Bar for a while, you have to assume they don't mind the Nazis.

Also that thing applies if you sit down for dinner with five Nazis, six Nazis have a meal together

President Xydexx is just full of hot air

If the cheato says that 2 + 2 = 4 then I'm looking at my fingers and counting, just to check

Hey, so, I know I'm new here in this leftist book club, but I was thinking, instead of reading theory this week, we could do a praxis and graffiti some slogans on main street? A friend at city hall told me the newly installed cameras haven't been switched on yet, so tonight's our chance. I'll drive!

no no no, "black body radiation" is the thing that makes 110% straight white christian right wing pundits have, you know, *those* thoughts about hunky dark skinned guys holding them in those muscled arms... it's woke mind virus transmitted by 5G towers, clearly!

I'm trying to get to the end of a joke about Zeno

How can a dog be defective? That's like saying a sunset is poorly made, or a cloud needs repair

Fire in the disco?

4-panel vertical comic. (1) 100 Years Ago [two people standing next to bicycle with small car nearby] PERSON 1: It’s too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too. (2) 50 Years Ago [two people between smaller car and bigger car] PERSON 2 with short hair: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one. (3) Today [two people between big car and even bigger car] PERSON 1: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don’t get the biggest one, I’m putting my family at risk. (4) Soon [two people next to large armored car with spiked clubs attached] PERSON 2: If I don’t install more whirling spike clubs, I’ll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...

Car Size

xkcd.com/3167/

"average american commits three felonies a day" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person commits 0 felonies per day. Felony Donald, who lives in florida & commits over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

That gemfox looks awesome!

I've heard two theories and I'm not sure which one is the primary. First is that it's the techbros widening and deepening the moat on setting up a website. Second its the toxic church/family crowd trying to block kids from finding out they are in a cult that can be exited. Porque no los dos?

"... and furthermore, the quality of litter provided is completely unacceptable for a person of my delicate sensibility. Please rectify these issues at once! Also... can I get some scritches behind the ears please?"

Every green party in the world owes its existence in part to the Franklin Dam protest in Tasmania in 1982/1983. One tactic was to have protestors arrested then break bail (by returning to the protest site) thus filling the limited gaol capacity of the state. Literally "they can't imprison us all!"

Hmm, maybe we should ask the government to fund a libertarian education center? Perhaps make it mandatory for school children to attend? It'd probably also be a good idea to make any criticism of it illegal, for obvious reasons

I think it is interesting that one episode was never broadcast, because of 'sensitive information', and it was cancelled due to the creator dying in a totally not suspicious plane crash.

Actually no it isn't interesting at all, coincidences happen all the time I'm sure it's nothing it's fine

Attention fellow AUSTRALIANS! 🇦🇺

We now have an official petition to parliament to STOP MASTERCARD and VISA from its campaign of censorship, restricting what legal products we can buy.

Please sign it now, and if you're not an Aussie, spread the word!

www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...

Cheshire cactus?

Another thing I'm mulling over is if there's a likely conflict between worker firms and consumer rights, and how that can be managed. But that's a ramble for another day

Perhaps there's a way to have a really low barrier for new voices to emerge, but with an effective yeet button for those that want to burn the place down? I don't have good answers yet, but this is what you get when I start musing on something after night shift

I'm not convinced by some efforts to reinvigorate traditional journalism. Substack, for instance, seems to have decided that they should have no say over what gets put up, and they are currently at the stage of having a few polite nazzys, and either don't know or don't care where that leads

I think there might be a model to be looked at in "Science", where articles are published with the expectation that there will be critical review by peers both before and after publication. Science does have the advantage that it has mother nature as an umpire, and she's very hard to fool

"Social" media is another can of worms, with an invisible algorithm acting as an unaccountable editor, with hard to discover biases and an incentive towards engagement instead of enlightenment
(to be fair though, it's the same incentive as a traditional editor, but millions of times a second)

There's also the challenge that you don't want The Government deciding what is and isn't acceptable to print, because it's prone to confuse legitimate criticism of its actions with sedition and treason

It's not the whole answer, a lot of stories get buried because of the possibility of libel litigation, and the fight isn't considered worth it. I'm pretty sure some of the crap that some religious groups played to cover up their clergy's offences was suppressed by the implicit threat of lawyers

I believe that having media organisations be worker owned and operated might go some way. When an editor doesn't have to worry about what the owner will say about the front page, there's likely going to be more honesty.