From John Ramirez’ website:

John Ramirez is one of those miracles with a transformed life through the finished work of the cross. He recounts his former life of being trained as a high-ranking devil worshipper warlock for 25 years of his life. He lived in the dark side in the highest realms of the demonic, specifically Santeria, Spiritualism and Palo Mayombe. In 1999, John passed away in his apartment in the Bronx, went to hell and met the devil and the cross of Jesus Christ. He was put back in his body the same night and became a born-again believer. He overcame the Kingdom of Darkness and has spent the latter part of his life being a fierce warrior for Jesus, uncompromised, preaching the gospel to the nations and setting the captives free.

Yup. Sounds like a reliable, unbiased source.

Yes. Fear is the basis of Christian fundamentalism, and it has become a super convenient way for the Republican party to keep them in line.

When fear is the baseline for your worldview, you see boogeymen around every corner.

The postmark is Tulsa, so that’s where it was mailed from.

Not all protestants do this, BTW.

US politics have moved so far to the right that I’m pretty sure contemporary moderate Democrats are nearly interchangeable with Reagan-era Republicans.

He’s an actor whose biggest role was playing Hercules on a low-budget show on a third-tier network in the 90s. Now, as far as I know, he’s only getting work in shitty evangelical movies.

A lot of my favorites have already been mentioned, but I don’t see “Caper” yet.

“Thanks for stopping by; thanks for breaking my cow lamp,” is still common parlance in our household.

And “The Cheat Is Not Dead” is a classic Strongbad hit.

I wonder what would happen if the world found out that Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (or any other celebrity/athlete/role model) was using Chat GPT to respond to fan mail. My gut feeling is that people would find it disingenuous at best – and there would probably be significant outrage.

Where’s the AI that does my dishes and cleans my house so I have more time to write, create, and connect with others? That’s the technology I want – not one that does the meaningful part and leaves the menial stuff up to me.

The convicted felon?

It’s pretty telling that they are trying to portray Marxists, Hermeticists, Luciferians, and Gnostics as united – or possibly even as the same group. Those circles of the Venn diagram might share some overlap, but (in my experience) their goals and principles aren’t very similar.

If I’m in transit on airplanes and in airports for 8 hours and I wear a mask for 7 of those hours, the one hour (or probably less) that I take off my mask to eat a meal doesn’t completely negate the good that wearing a mask does for the rest of the time. I’m still reducing my risk (or the risk I pose to others around me) for 88% of my travel time.

Taxi accessibility varies wildly depending on where you are.

I lived in a small city (700k-ish people) for a decade and almost never saw a taxi on the streets. One morning, I locked my keys in the house and had to call a cab to take me to work. It took 30 minutes for a taxi to arrive. I lived literally one block away from the city’s taxi depot.

A couple of years later, Uber hit the scene. With their service, I never waited more than 8 minutes for a ride anywhere in the city.

Just the one time, I think.

For me, everything that happens on HBO after Jon is stabbed by his brothers is just high-end fanfic. I will always believe that the showrunners fucked up the ending. And, let’s be real, GRRM isn’t going to prove me wrong.

In some countries, cellular companies still charge for sending text messages to people who have a different provider. WhatsApp is an easy way to connect with all of the people you know without paying extra fees.

And there’s a whole customer interface that lets you order directly from small businesses, which is super convenient if you live in a country that still has a lot of “mom and pop” stores instead of giant superstore chains.

It was the musical, so it was not a cheap ticket. I don’t know how they didn’t know it was not going to be supportive of their worldview.

We went to see that one with a group of friends. A couple of people in the group thought it was amazing and deep, and the rest of us thought it was empty and pretentious. We wound up having a very loud two-hour debate in the parking lot afterward.

An older lady and a kid were at South Park in the row in front of me. They didn’t make it 10 minutes.

I think that a lot of people in the Boomer and older age ranges never really understood the idea of adult animation, so they just assume that animated shows and films are made for kids.

(But my favorite Parker/Stone walk-out was the obviously Mormon couple who sat in front of us for the first 30 minutes of The Book of Mormon. The guy had the word “Mormon” embossed on his belt. They didn’t do their homework before they bought those tickets.)

Opening weekend, my then-fiancé (now husband) and I went to see this movie. I had gone way down the viral marketing rabbit hole before the film came out. I had read all of the websites and watched all of the “supporting evidence” videos. I knew it was a work of fiction, but I was super invested.

The movie ends, the final credits roll, and the woman in front of me looks at her date and says, “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t scary at all.” Then she turns around to get her sweater off the back of her seat and we make eye contact.

I’m sitting absolutely still, staring straight ahead, tears dripping off my chin.

She didn’t say anything else, took her things, and left.

I grew up in a fundamentalist evangelical church, and I had a lot of religious trauma around witches as a kid. Like, my mom made me listen to Mike Wernke and wouldn’t let me go trick-or-treating because she believed that witches were sacrificing children to Satan. I had recurring nightmares – well into my 20s – about a witch who lived in the woods behind my house who tried to kill me in horrible ways.

So, while I absolutely understand that The Blair Witch Project is not for everyone, it remains the single most terrifying film I’ve ever seen.

From a utilitarian perspective, you’re still reducing overall suffering by an order of magnitude, so your scenario is still a greater good.