It’s the state of mind caused by simultaneously believing two (or more) things that conflict with each other.

Can’t starve people to death if other people are allowed to give them food.

And while they’re arguing about who’s causing the most chaos, the rest of us are left wondering—how did it get this bad?

Actually, that’s easy.

It got this bad because our system is so warped and corrupt that most politicians can no longer even pretend to run on policies and principles. If they get elected, they’re going to do one and only one thing - they’re going to serve the interests of the wealthy individuals and corporations that pay them the fattest bribes. They obviously can’t run on a promise to do that, but they can’t promise to do anything else because they’re not going to do anything else. So they run on hatred and fear - they run on things like “ELECT US BECAUSE THE IMMIGRANTS ARE EATING YOUR PETS!!”

It really is just that simple.

And if the world were a just place instead of a twisted shithole designed to maximize the privilege of a relative few wealthy and empowered parasites, you could work fewer hours, make the same or even more money and afford a house.

But instead the system has been warped so that you have to work long hours for insufficient pay and still can’t afford a decent life, and all so that a relative few executives, board nembers, bankers, investors and politicians can siphon off the bulk of the wealth you generate so that they can buy more houses and bigger yachts.

No - actually I was talking worldwide. Russia’s just a notable example.

And I would say that all of the things you listed are, directly or indirectly, consequences of the fact that wealthy authoritarian parasites have warped societies to their benefit regardless of the harm done to others, so are actually examples of exactly what I’m talking about.

News flash for wealthy authoritarian parasites around the world, because you all seem ignorant of this fact:

Declining birthrates are a direct result of the simple fact that more people all the time decide that they have no desire to bring children into this world, and that in turn is a direct result of the fact that you’ve turned this world into a warped, corrupt, toxic, authoritarian shithole.

You have no one to blame but yourselves.

And those are the people this whole thing is intended for.

You’ll note that none of the people involved responded to attempts to get further statements or clarifications from them. That’s because they know it’s indefensible bullshit. They said it just so that it would get out there so that the faithful would see it and add it to their credo, and now they’re going to ignore it.

And I guarantee that billionaire Larry Ellison blithely believes that he’ll be exempt - that all of this surveillance will just be used against the little people. And he’s almost certainly right.

It’s become obvious over time that one of Trump’s primary strategies in life is assigning his failures and faults to other people. He lives in a sort of permanent fog of projection.

I wonder who he’s trying to fool though. It’s so constant and seemingly effortless that I suspect that it’s really mostly for his own benefit - that it’s not just the story he’s telling other people, but the story he’s telling himself.

Well… yeah. Brazil’s the B in BRICS and Russia’s the R, so Brazil is officially pro-Russia.

And by the bye - China’s the C.

These groups understand the Republican voters, many of whom are not inclined to rank candidates. Ranked-choice voting favors the more malleable Democrat voters who will do so.

Or in other words, Democrats are more likely to actually think about their votes and find things to appreciate in multiple candidates, while Republicans are more likely to just slavishly vote for whoever has an [R] after their name and disregard everything and everyone else.

And arguably more to the point, Republican politicians count on that.

Take note that this is from the government that the MAGA Republicans support.

This, to them, is honor and strength - to invade a sovereign nation, then threaten to drop nuclear bombs on them for daring to fight back.

That’s the world the MAGA Republicans want - one in which they and their allies are fully entitled to do whatever they want to whoever they want, and the only choices others are to be granted are to submit or die.

I think you have forums confused with microblogs.

I presume I’m supposed to care, but I dont, and I don’t know why anyone would.

Yes - they will sacrifice public lands to the oil industry. And the mining industry And the lumber industry. And any other industry that pays them sufficient bribes.

And when the people can’t take it anymore and finally try to stand against the wanton destruction, we’re going to learn first-hand why all those Cop Cities are being built.

The first time through, I read them in publishing order, starting with The Colour of Magic. That way, I got to see how it all unfolded in real time, and got to watch Pratchett’s skill grow (and eventually decline).

Since then, I’ve either followed specific characters (Vimes or Granny or Tiffany or Death) or just read whatever caught my attention at the moment.

Either this Georg Szalai has managed to make a 20-plus year career out of being a mediocre writer or he turned that one over to an AI…

Hexbear is sort of like a village of eldritch abomination worshippers in a Lovecraftian horror story - isolated, insular, entirely wrapped up in their own esoteric rituals and ideas and language, and immediately and collectively hostile to outsiders.

Yellowstone is an odd and awkward combination of things.

I grew up in that part of the world and, unlike the author of the linked article (and the people he writes about), I spent a lot of my time in the outdoors. In fact, in the summer, my family spent more time traveling and camping than they did at home. I don’t even remember learning about the outdoors - it’s as if I’ve just always known how to function in it.

And from that point of view, there are two distinctive facts about Yellowstone.

First, as noted and as is obvious, it’s packed full of tourists, most of whom know nothing at all about the outdoors.

The other thing though - the odd and awkward thing - is that it’s unusually dangerous - not just to ignorant tourists, but to anyone. As a matter of fact, between the geysers, the terrain and the wildlife, I’m hard-pressed to think of another place in the whole of the northwest that’s more immediately and inherently dangerous than Yellowstone. I mean - there are certainly places you can get to that are more dangerous - high in the mountains or deep in the deserts - but those all require significant effort. To just get out of a car and walk 50 feet into danger - nowhere else is even close to Yellowstone.

So it’s just sort of ironic that it’s also the place stuffed to the brim with dumb tourists.

Trump is rather obviously profoundly mentally ill, and it’s long past time for that to be noted every single time he goes off on another of his delusional rants.

Exactly as noted in the article, it’s not even enough to fact check him (though that should be done as a matter of course) because it’s not just that so much of what he says is false. The much more significant fact is that so much of what he says is insane. It’s not ideas and beliefs shaped and presented by a rational mind, but the disjointed ravings of a lunatic, and that’s exactly how it should be treated.