If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity.

-Robert G. Ingersoll

More damning? I would think trying to overthrow the government and trying to install himself as a dictator would be just as bad.

I’d say yes… except he does it to smart and digital watches too.

My snake likes to wrap around and ‘strangle’ watches. Not bracelets, just watches.

Like others here, I was drawn to anime and manga for the varied storylines that had arcs that mattered, and an ending, and then stopped. And wrote something totally new.

Whereas comics would reboot the same story, and reboot it, and reboot it… Or they’d have a big arc that dramatically changed things… and two issues later suddenly its status quo all over again.

All of this made it hard to really get invested in their characters or stories. Why even do a story if you’re going to erase it all in the next storyline? Why care if so-and-so died if they’ll just be back in next week’s issue?

The other reason was strong female protagonists that weren’t all sexualized to the wazoo. In western comics it was all tight spandex and butt-boob shots and shots framed by women’s thighs… and most of the non-super women were just plot points to be stuffed in a fridge.

Meanwhile there were piles of strong, well-rounded, independent women of all different ages in manga and anime. Even the sexy women were developed characters first and sexy second. With western comics it definitely felt the other way around.

I grew up on Magic Knight Rayearth and Slayers and Iria and Cowboy Bebop. Watching those was like a breath of fresh air compared to Batman Reboot #242 or whatever.

And I really liked the varied art styles. Western comics were pretty much all of a muchness, the same style or close to it. Manga, meanwhile, had everything from Clamp’s super-detailed art to Dragonball’s more simplistic style. It gave them a much more unique feel.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Some animals can figure it. At the nursery I used to work at, the new nursery cat decided to take a nap in a customer’s truck, and woke up in the nearby town (still several miles away).

She started to walk back, got part of the way, realized she didn’t know the rest of the way, and waited at an intersection. Then, when a local family stopped to put up some signs for a town festival, she accosted them and wouldn’t let them leave until they took her with them.

They recognized her and brought her back to the nursery.

I’m sure people said that about passenger pigeons too at one point.

See, Britain just needs Ugly Laws, like what America had up until 1974! Then they could just have the guy arrested!

In all seriousness what the fuck. What goes through a person’s head that they think treating someone that way is even remotely okay?

If you’re into cooking, history, or both, Tasting History with Max Miller is great. Lots of wonderful history, from the common to the obscure. He works hard to find primary sources for every story he shares, as well as calling out fake stories. He also corrects himself when he gets something wrong. And the recipes are fascinating!

Been getting into Bonsai Mirai lately. Very educational, in-depth videos about how to do Bonsai, with tips for everyone from a beginner to an expert. Also very relaxing to watch.

‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’

I first saw it as ‘coop’ and immediately thought, ‘hell yes, I’d support a community-owned coop, but only if there were lots of fluffy chickens and a 24/7 camera on them’.

Then I realized what you really meant. Which I’m also not opposed to, if it was set up well.

This person helpfully provided links.

Also, the ASPCA says it doesn’t work. You know, the guys who’s job it is to look after the health and safety of pets?

Give me actual long-term scientific studies that say cats can go vegan and we can talk. Otherwise, we’re done.

It doesn’t work. No study shows it does, save for a few poorly-done ones paid for by vegan think-tanks, and even those are ambiguous. Maybe one day we will manage it, but right now we can’t.

The problem here is they need specific molecules. A vegan diet does not give cats those correct necessary molecules.

Okay, so this is just factually wrong.

Putting oxygen in a tank is necessary for the health of the fish. Feeding a cat meat is necessary for the health of the cat.

It’s also a false equivalence.

There is no workaround for oxygenating fish tanks; we don’t find something that ‘might work as well as oxygen’ according to poorly done studies. We just give them oxygen, the thing they actually need to live.

Wow, downvoting a serious medical condition. Some people need to touch grass.

On February 8, 1975, following the lineups, police arrested Simmons and Roberts, and they were charged with capital murder. However, Simmons testified that on December 30, 1974, he was in Harvey, Louisiana and spent the day playing pool with friends. His alibi was confirmed by four witnesses.

In January 2023, Simmons’s attorneys Joseph Norwood and John Coylefiled filed an amended application for post-conviction relief which cited the failure of the prosecution to disclose the police report which said that Brown had initially identified other two men and noted that in fact Brown had identified four other individuals during the eight lineup procedures. The motion also noted that in addition to the four witnesses who testified at the trial that Simmons was in Harvey, there were two other witnesses present who were to testify similarly but they did not after Simmons’s defense lawyer denied their testimony as cumulative. The petition included affidavits from five more people who said that they saw Simmons in Harvey at the time of the crime.

So convicted despite plenty of eyewitnesses saying he was somewhere else at the time. In addition, even the trial prosecutor thought he may have been wrongfully convicted:

In 1995, Robert Mildfelt, the trial prosecutor, wrote a letter to Simmons saying that the only witness [Brown] who identified him had wanted to think about the identification “overnight.” He wrote that Brown had described Simmons as more than six feet tall and over 200 pounds, “a physical description greatly different from Mr. Simmons [sic] stature at the time.

No word on why he put the man on trial with no evidence putting him at the scene and plenty of evidence putting him miles away. But really, we can all guess the reason.

Honestly? More education (and possibly more exposure) and less fetishization, although I’m not quite sure how to achieve the second one.

Back when my parents were in school, schools had shooting teams (my high school apparently had an award-winning women’s team), and my dad even brought a gun to school once to show to a teacher (it was an older gun and the teacher was a gun collector). They spent the whole of lunch period talking about how cool that old gun of grandpa’s was.

Because back then a gun was just a tool, and one more people had access to, since a lot of people were still out on the farm and such. My dad learned from a young age that guns were dangerous, and how to properly handle them, and pretty much all his classmates did too.

But then the Republicans started the, ‘we have to regulate!’ and the ‘but think of the children!’ nonsense because that was when the Black Panthers started going around armed, and a bunch of white people were suddenly uncomfortably aware that minorities could defend themselves from racial violence if they wanted to.

And then the Republican Party turned around and started making guns an ‘identity’ thing, so suddenly they became a symbol of Republican so-called ‘values’, and people began obsessing over them like they were rare jewels or some such nonsense. It didn’t help that the Democrats were happy to jump on the bandwagon as the ‘we’re totally against guns so you can tell we’re different from them!’ group to provide a pearl-clutching counterpoint.

And so now we’ve got, well, all the fetishized and forbidden-fruit bullshit. Guns are kind of seen almost like cigarettes on steroids: the cool and dangerous thing that all the rebels and ‘strong independent types’ have.

I’m a bit In despair as to how to get us to stop doing that. Certainly other nations, like Switzerland, have lots of guns and gun access and don’t have our problems. But they definitely don’t build identities around firearms either.

Edit to add: of course Switzerland has actual functional health care, including mental health care, so I imagine that helps.

They’ve done studies, and have found that guard rails actually make the problem worse. Gives people a sense of security and a false sense of bravado.