the reactions to Charlie Kirk's funeral have reinforced my opinion that most US Christians have no desire to *actually* be persecuted for their beliefs - they just want to imagine that they could be, and pretend that imagining the possibility is just as virtuous as if it actually happened.

it will never not be saddening every time I drive through all the skyscrapers that have taken over my hometown, and for most of them, find myself unable to remember what was there before

iunno who will see this, but for awareness: I emailed the GI Rights Hotline folks earlier, and they confirmed they can assist servicemembers who are facing adverse actions over "inappropriate" social media posts: girightshotline.org

if you're gonna have AI answer your customer support inbox, you should at least get an AI that doesn't fail spectacularly at it

my goodness, this man is unfathomably based (as I believe the kids say)

a few times a week nowadays, I find myself thinking back to my childhood, my teenage years, my time in the Air Force, and (generally) enjoying it all... and how I had no idea back then exactly how bad everything would be right about now

I'm not anybody of great significance, I'm just a guy who did nine years and finished out as a mediocre Captain... but still, I'm a former USAF officer and speaking as a former USAF officer: every officer who approved or executed that strike should be court-martialed.

update: pay attention to your medication refills, because apparently if you run out of Cymbalta and forget for most of the week to pick up your refill, withdrawal effects do not take long to show up 😬

talking to some of my friends on Discord: "I don't know what's going on with me lately, it feels like..." "uhhh that sounds like you're dissociating" "oh"

my whole life I've held out for the hope that things will get better. and every time it seems like they're starting to, it all goes wrong. I want to keep believing it. but every time, it just gets harder and harder. I'm so tired

lol ghosted for a week and now blocked, I fucking hate dating and I don't know why I thought anything would turn out differently this time

I am starting to think that I should give up on the exhausting work of keeping my emotions under control and just let shit run wild, because increasingly it's seeming like that's the only way psychiatrists will take you seriously

lol, I basically stopped talking to my one friend because every time I do, he starts talking about his bf within 5 messages and now I haven't messaged him in a few weeks, so he messaged *me* to talk about his bf I miss when he was single and he actually talked about other things

it occurs to me, unhappily, that the road my country is currently traveling down... may wind up in a place where I am not able to forgive my family and friends who had a part in it

America is no longer descending into fascism. We are seconds away from impact Military occupation has come to DC. If and when military occupation comes to where you are, there are things that you can do. This article outlines some of them

reading the comments section on Facebook news posts right now is like watching Revenge of the Sith in theater and having half the audience applaud Chancellor Palpatine for taking bold, decisive action to ensure a safe and secure society

I'm probably not the first person to notice this, but: the admin is basically lying when they say DC is #4 nationwide for violent crime. it's not #4/100, it's #4 out of a list of 24 cities that were hand-selected for an RIT report, to create a table that has Rochester in the middle.

The military takeover of Washington is not a “distraction” from Epstein. It’s a military takeover of Washington, which is an even bigger deal, and those of us who kill brain cells reporting on this stuff knows it’s been an explicit goal since before the election.

First it was troops in L.A., sent to provoke and assault peaceful protesters under the banner of “immigration enforcement.” Now it’s troops in our capital to disappear the homeless. See the pattern? Sooner or later, the monster comes for us all.

hey uhhhh it seems bad that government websites are removing parts of the Constitution that grant Congress control of spending money, the authority to pass laws governing the military, and the part that prohibits suspending habeas corpus: web.archive.org/web/diff/202...

update: none of the above, my CT scan and labs came back completely fine. not sure what it is (strained muscle? iunno) but it's not life threatening!

not that I'm expecting to die in the ER - but I'm at the same hospital where I was born, so if I did die, then my final lifetime velocity would be about 5 feet per year

I like it when medical providers are confident about something, but "you need to go to the ER" is a notable exception to that mentality stay tuned to find out if it's appendicitis, diverticulitis, peritonitis, or some exciting combination! or maybe even something else entirely!

so I recently had a falling out with a formerly close friend, largely because he started dating someone and turned into a completely different person who can't talk about anything else he texted me to say happy birthday and then literally two messages later started talking about his bf 😑

dear companies everywhere: nothing says "we don't really value you as a customer" like having an LLM send incorrect answers instead of having customer support people

due to Rite Aid closing, I haven't been able to get my Vyvanse refilled, and the last couple days have not been good 🫩

We are seven months in, and the speed with which vital civic institutions are capitulating to authoritarian demands we once would have regarded as inconceivable in an established liberal democracy is jawdropping. I hadn't thought I was polyannaish about America, but it's really stunning.

an important thing to remember about the camps they're building is that they're all going to be operated for-profit which means they will make sure that they find enough people to lock up in them to get paid, no matter what. their goal won't be to help people, it will be to lock them up.

this comes after I was talking to a guy for a bit, we added each other on Instagram, and then I guess he didn't like what he saw because he slowly stopped responding leaving me wondering, once again, why I should even keep trying

few things are as depressing as being gay and single at almost 40

hot take: since West Virginia seceded from Virginia to rejoin the Union and abolish slavery, then proceeded to disenfranchise former Confederate soldiers and officials, that makes them the superior Virginia

hell yeah. drove through my nearby hometown around rush hour, and there's a bunch of people with flags and "IMPEACH NOW" signs

I started learning to use Stable Diffusion the other day, and while I generally think it's a dangerous creation with more bad uses than good ones, I have to hand it to the people who can make convincing fake pictures/videos with it because it turns out it is incredibly complicated to use

people are starting to put up signs opposing development of high-density housing in my city (which is mostly single family homes), and I just have a feeling that these are the same people who complain about unaffordable housing and property taxes

I'm at a town hall with @repkimschrier.bsky.social and someone asked the question "are checks and balances on the executive branch working?" and the entire room laughed

youtu.be/Q3dvbM6Pias "Mr. Anchor, assure me that Fordow is burning"

the resident Dunning-Kruger poster child from all my missileer Facebook groups has appeared yet again... this time to declare that an "if-then-else" statement is a primitive form of AI

I am watching a bunch of young adults celebrating the 4th, and it makes me sad in a way that it never has at any other time in my life

I'm volunteering at a youth camp thing, where I was informed this morning that I am "aura farming" and that this is a good thing, so I got that going for me I guess

currently on Xyzal, Claritin, Flonase, and Sudafed, and still dying D:

had to get a new phone because they decided my old one wouldn't keep getting Android security updates, and my smartwatch is too old to work with my new phone 🙄 yay for planned obsolescence

got a three hour drive ahead of me, and I've never been a podcast guy, but I guess this is a good time to start ... although I have the nasty feeling it's gonna be hard to find tech podcasts right now that aren't just an hour or so of gushing about AI

that's cool, the guy I was talking to on Tinder just unmatched me mid conversation are the straights hiring? getting pretty sick of the gay dating pool, which is shallow enough to be more of a puddle

it is somewhat upsetting when one of your friends starts dating someone and then they just turn into a different person who is not enjoyable to talk to

welcome to Seattle, the nation's premier city for changing lanes on the interstate by braking to a near halt

it occurs to me with great unease that if this triggers terror attacks inside the US, they're going to be used as justification for things much worse than we're currently seeing with ICE

just got a new phone (since apparently my old one is no longer getting security updates), and boy, re-installing all my apps for the "first" time really drives home how every fucking app and website in existence nowadays tries to shove notifications and "personalized recommendations" in your face