My uncle is a pastor. So when his kid came out as trans, he and his wife did the ‘good moral Christian’ thing and shamed her and harassed her until she committed suicide.

Then deadnamed her at the funeral, and wrote and published a book about how ‘his betrayal’ and ‘his unfortunate death’ were just tests from God to test their faith.

This is not a rare or unique story; many people all over the world have stories like this. Is it any wonder those who pay attention find religion distasteful? It may be a part of humanity, but many unpleasant things are, and there is nothing ‘edgy’ about rejecting them.

Yes, there are ‘good’ churches in my town that feed and clothe the poor; a far cry from my uncle’s church. But they are part of the same religion, and the fact that religion accepts both, morals be damned, means I have no interest in it.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. -Steven Weinberg

Basically, yes.

In the books it was just that they would only answer to Isldur’s Heir. They also scared the Corsairs of Umbar away from their ships, but it was an army of Dunadain (along with a few elves, like Elrond’s sons) that actually ran them off permanently, so they could use the ships to bring some of the Gondorians in the south back north to join the main battle.

It isn’t just that. Any job seen as a ‘woman’s job’ is going to pay less. And it isn’t just for the ‘traditional’ women’s jobs, like grade school teacher or secretary. If women enter a field in significant numbers, then wages overall will fall. See veterinary work for one example.

Pisses me the fuck off.

I mean, it’s supposed to be.

Probably still won’t stop future humans from opening the vault, sadly.

We used to have a thriving rail and trolley system in the US; in most major cities especially. The automakers destroyed it. When they were caught, they got a slap-on-the-wrist fine and the nation went with the automaker’s suggestion of building the highway system up.

So yes, there is a fundamental reason we can’t. It’s the auto makers and the politicians they own.

As others have said, these are taken from Gary Larson’s daily website posts of old comics.

He is still drawing. Although retired, he recently got a tablet and has been experimenting with it, so he puts out new comics on his website every so often when the mood strikes him.

21 out of 24

That was kinda fun

Well, bubbles are full of air… maybe it’s just bubbles in the tub.

This question has been answered multiple times in past posts, but basically they’re posting whatever the daily comic is for today on Larson’s website.

That depends on what you mean.

Did a giraffe stretch its neck longer and longer, and then pass that long-necked gene onto its kids? No.

Can an embryo that gets a random mutation while developing in the egg/womb pass it on to their children? Yes.

This gets a bit more complicated if you really dig into it, though. Environment does change the expression of genes, and that particular sequence of genes that have been activated/shut-off/whatever can be passed on to children too.

Hence why children who were born to two shorter parents will often grow much taller than them if given much better nutrition. Or why obesity often shows up chronically in families that were poor or had limited access to healthier foods in other ways; their bodies had adapted to grab and store every extra calorie they could to guard against starvation, and unfortunately shutting that gene expression off naturally takes multiple generations.

‘Tell him we will pray for him.’

‘He needs your prayers.’

‘Is he, then, an unhappy man?’

Poirot said, ‘So unhappy that he has forgotten what happiness means. So unhappy that he does not know he is unhappy.’

The nun said softly, ‘Ah, a rich man…’

Poirot said nothing—for he knew there was nothing to say…

Yes, I know. I was referencing two different artists; one that did try to have their darker-skinned characters be that way even in black and white, vs one who didn’t because he was concerned about how the comic would read.

Yeah, Franklin from Peanuts tended to be a bit difficult to read facially sometimes because of the shading. Watterson once said that black and white shading could be tricky since the eye, being lazy, was drawn to empty white space.

So often in black and white comics they just forgo skin tones, especially in a more simplistic style like Larson’s. If you look at Watterson’s art, for example, his Sunday strips do show some darker kids, but in the daily black & whites they’re generally all drawn ‘white’.

Also keep in mind that Larson is white, and so him making fun of black people probably wouldn’t go over well.

Hey, at least you’re listening and giving it serious thought. That’s better than some people.

According to the CDC, 1 in 3 women in the US have been victims of sexual harassment or assault. And honestly, given how underreported those sorts of stats are, it’s probably higher.

Another hypothetical question was posed to women a while ago: if all the men on the planet got whisked away (not killed, just sent to an awesome men-only vacation planet or something) for 48 hours, what would you do?

The answers were overwhelmingly things like ‘go for a walk at night’, ‘take a jog with my earbuds in’, ‘go to the gym’…

Sequel to The Gold Cadillac just dropped

They do have ideology and ironclad values. It’s very simple: the law should have a class which it protects but does not bind, and a class which it binds but does not protect. And they are always supposed to be in the first class. Because they are awesome. And they’re awesome, you see, because they’re in the first class.

Anything they do is in service of this belief.

Science says the in-group folks are awesome and perfect? Science is great! Science says in-groups and those out-group guys over there are basically the same? Science is useless and probably evil! That out-group person over there says in-group people are better than them? That person is 100% correct! That person says in-group people aren’t better and the out-group people deserve the same things in-groups have? That person is evil and needs to die!

They didn’t hate COVID and refuse to mask because they were just being obtuse. They hated that they were being lumped in with the (in their minds) ‘out-group’ and having all the same restrictions put on them. In their mind, the out-group is the only one that should be restricted. Ever. For any reason.

This is also why the War on Drugs here in the states got so much support. It created a well-defined in-group (white rich people who could still use drugs with impunity) and an out group (poor and people of color who could be accused of drug use and locked up even if they were innocent).

And this is why they’re banning abortion. You’ll note, if pushed, there’s often the vague statement of ‘oh, they can go out of state if they need to’. What they’re really saying is ‘we of the in-group will still be able to get abortions by going elsewhere/having cops look the other way/etc, but you of the out-group won’t’.

They don’t care what it is, as long as they have an item/privilege that the out-group doesn’t have. (I think this might also be why they idolize the rich; the rich naturally have a setup sort of like this thanks to money letting them have more things, and they want that so bad.)

Some people need a very structured, simple, well-defined worldview in order to function. Sort of like a computer has to follow a set program or it bluescreens.

‘This person coming towards me is a man. I can tell by his bowler hat and dapper suit. Therefore the correct action is to say ‘good morning sir, nice weather today’.’ And ‘This person coming towards me is a woman. I can tell by her dress and long hair and makeup. She is married based on the ring I see. Therefore the correct action is to say ‘good morning, ma’am, nice weather today’.’

And so on.

A person not presenting clearly as either gender, or isn’t the gender they’re expecting, means the ‘script’ no longer works. They no longer feel sure of what to do, and that lack of control of the situation makes them panicked.

Really, a lot of this, and conservatism in general, comes down to simple structure and control, so these people feel they always know what to do and where they stand.

Because our society is a social contract, and to act wrongly means you get ostracized from society. In ancient times that was practically a death sentence, and I don’t think these folks have ever gotten over that. They fear becoming the ‘outsiders’, left to the wolves and lions.

Oh noooo it’s old no-one should like stuff that’s old only new things are cool

You know, one day the stuff you like will be old too.

Also, Star Trek been around a long time, yeah, but it’s still going with new content.