This is the way.

Conservatives heard Stephen Colbert say “Reality has a liberal bias” and concluded that the only solution was to declare war on reality.

Virtually anything with a Newberry Medal is highly likely to have a traumatizing beloved character death somewhere in it. Maniac Magee and Bridge to Terabithia were good examples from my childhood.

It’s been a process.

What’s amazing to me about the people who are facilitating the downfall of democracy on behalf of their oligarch and demagogue buddies is that they’ve deluded themselves into believing that they will still be of use, once democracy is good and dead.

If you’re looking to murder democracy, you need accomplices, people in positions of power within the existing government to help get the job done. But once it’s done, what do you need those accomplices for anymore? If anything, they’re just loose ends for you to tidy up within your full-on fascistic government.

The Teds Cruz and Clarences Thomas of the world serve a purpose in helping achieve a hateful goal, but once they’ve outlived their usefulness, they will absolutely be made to disappear, if for no other reason than because they know too much.

They’re basically setting up a scenario whereby they will either be facing an angry mob for their role in attempting to kill democracy, or else they will be facing a purification squad once they successfully replace democracy.

Not great on long-term planning, if you ask me.

Say what you will about Hitler, he did kill Hitler.

But on the other hand, he also killed the guy who killed Hitler.

There’s also a theory that the 5th circuit exists to make terrible rulings so that the Supreme Court can overturn it but do it in such a way that it still advances some horrible agenda.

Something along the lines of:

5th Circuit: You can totally post the ten commandments in schools, because hoorah Jesus!

Supreme Court: You can’t actually post the the ten commandments in all schools, just the private ones, oh and by the way it’s totally cool and legal to drain all the funding out of public schools and give it to private schools.

Man: Genie, I wish for you to fuck me half to death!

If he’s kept out of office for a second term, I’ll consider that a win and keep on trying for the next one. Almost everything after achieving that one goal can be done after it is achieved, but if he does get a second term then virtually everything imaginable will be getting worse for the foreseeable future.

Is it any wonder that Trump is unleashing absolutely unbearable farts in the court room?

Well, sure. The Neanderthal has probably been mostly thinking about roots and berries and such, whereas Marjorie…

I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that the seal of the Comstock’s New York Society for the Suppression of Vice gleefully features a person being thrown into a dungeon, and a book burning.

But we could build a Ringworld, and then we can spin it for gravity, add shadow squares for a day-night cycle, and not have to rely on artificial gravity generators to prevent us from falling into the sun!

I’ve been playing Shattered Pixel Dungeon virtually every day for years, through I don’t know how many updates. I’m far from convinced that every run is winnable, but there are some patterns that I’ve observed.

Mage and Huntress seem to be my best classes. The Mage’s staff means that you are guaranteed to have something that’s worth upgrading. The Huntress’ bow and her special abilities like growing grass by walking can make for some truly interesting gameplay changes, whereas I feel like most of the other classes’ abilities are more about moderate improvements to quality of life.

A Ring of Haste is probably my favorite ring to find, since being able to kite monsters is a great path to victory. Tenacity, Elements, and Strength are boring. Wealth can be good if it comes upgraded, but I wouldn’t put scrolls into it. Evasion always seems to turn on me sooner or later. Energy and Arcana can improve quality of life but are otherwise pretty mid.

A Wand of Regrowth is almost always a path to victory, especially if it comes upgraded, doubly so if you become a Warden, and triply so if you can combine it with the Sandals of Regrowth.

A Wand of Blast Wave is incredibly useful when used to knock enemies off ledges or into traps, saving yourself the trouble of killing them.

Other wands are a super mixed bag, depending on what you can manage to do with them, but I’ll say that some of my most fun and successful runs are putting a Wand of Corruption into my Mage’s Staff and becoming a Corruption Battlemage. You whack an enemy, Amok him on his friends, then corrupt them, then rinse and repeat until you win.

I’ve already mentioned the Sandals, which I’d say are incredibly useful if you’ve got a Wand of Regrowth or a Blooming enchanted weapon, but are otherwise hard to keep getting enough fresh grass to make worthwhile. I think the Ethereal Chains and Hourglass are my favorite and most useful artifacts. Horn of Plenty is okay but not great, unless you can combine it with being filled by the Battlemage’s energy generating ability. Other artifacts are mid, but I’ll make a special mention of the Unstable Spellbook which seems to screw me as often as it helps and yet I can’t deny that I have a great time with the mayhem it adds to my run. The Alchemist’s Toolkit is terrible; I hope a future patch significantly alters or replaces it, because honestly why bother using it at all?

I think my favorite runs are Corruption Battlemage or a Sniper with a nicely upgraded Boomerang; I always get a lot of fun out of using the boomerangs.

There’s no end to the conversation but that’s all I’ve got for now. It’s far and away the most played game on my phone… possibly my most played game ever, measured by eternal hours. The publisher is an absolute treasure and he deserves all the praise and success in the world.

"Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”

Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over."

—Emo Phillips

Not sure if I merit being called an audiophile, but…

Huge collection of mp3s ripped from CDs. Stored locally, currently using a Unihertz Jelly Star as a glorified digital audio player, running BlackPlayer EX, which I like for it being a good mix of minimalist and giving me freedom to customize as much as I feel I need. When I’m using headphones, I want my ears uncovered so I use Shokz bone conduction headphones.

If you believe that laws forbidding gambling, sale of liquor, sale of contraceptives, requiring definite closing hours, enforcing the Sabbath, or any such, are necessary to the welfare of your community, that is your right and I do not ask you to surrender your beliefs or give up your efforts to put over such laws. But remember that such laws are, at most, a preliminary step in doing away with the evils they indict. Moral evils can never be solved by anything as easy as passing laws alone. If you aid in passing such laws without bothering to follow through by digging in to the involved questions of sociology, economics, and psychology which underlie the causes of the evils you are gunning for, you will not only fail to correct the evils you sought to prohibit but will create a dozen new evils as well.

—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

Let Bartlett be Bartlett!

I’ll have it explain complicated topics using familiar frameworks. As an example, I had it run through various superheroes and villains and match them up with appropriate philosophers. This conversation was how I settled on the idea that Lex Luthor has a lot more in common with Ayn Rand than Friedrich Nietzsche.

And that’s why every carpenter bee horror story starts with “There was a knock at the door…”