Thank you.

Facsist ageist?

Positive male role models do positively shape a boy’s emotional resilience, social behavior, and academic attainment though researchers and educators also debate the exact weight of gender-specific versus general caregiving. Can you seriously believe that this type of male and many others like him, some as fathers) would do any thing other than produce a low achieving socially inept son?

“I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016 and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic, morally vacant, and psychologically mangled he is. I do not wonder anymore. He won for that exact reason. He was not a candidate. He was a mirror. If you were a racist, you found your guy. If you were a misogynist, you found your guy. If money was your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart was armoured shut, you found your guy. If you mocked disabled people, you found your guy. If you hated intelligent people, you found your guy. If you were a rapist, you found your guy. If you enjoyed golden showers with Russian sex workers, you found your guy. If you had done absolutely nothing to confront your emotional wreckage, you found your guy. If you were a serial cheater, you found your guy. If you were a perpetual bankrupt, you found your guy. If you stiffed honest workers, you found your guy. If you were a conman, you found your guy. If you mocked people’s appearances, you found your guy. If you longed for a toxic Daddy, you found your guy. If you were dissociated and disembodied, you found your guy. If you were unconscionable in every economic dealing, you found your guy. If you lied as naturally as breathing, you found your guy. If you had never eaten a green vegetable, you found your guy. If you were a white supremacist, you found your guy. If your ego contained a hole so large not even the presidency could fill it, you found your guy. If you were a sociopath who cared not one molecule about other humans, you found your guy. If he had only two of these traits, he never would have won. He won because he had hundreds of them, and millions of people recognized themselves in at least one. This has never been about Trump. It has always been about the people who finally had their worst instincts validated. Trump did not create the cruelty, he licensed it. He handed out permission slips for hate. He is merely a symptom of a far deeper disease: collective toxicity. If there is one sentence that explains Trump’s power, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” That is the part that should chill the spine. Who knew that tens of millions of Americans were thinking such unconscionable things about their fellow citizens? Who knew how many white men felt so threatened by women and challenged by minorities that they were ready to torch democracy to feel big again? Who knew that after decades of apparent progress on race and gender, so many people were living in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to legitimize their worst selves and convert their bitterness into political power? We were living in a fool’s paradise. We aren’t anymore." — Michael Jochum

Neoliberalism gone bad or mad.

‘The most uneducated buffoon in history stands at a podium, bloated with self-importance, lips pursed like a carnival barker ready to sell turd milk to the unsuspecting. He grins a grotesque smirk stretched across his face as he scrawls his name onto a hollow decree, a sham celebration of the dismantling of knowledge itself. The Department of Education falls, not with a bang, but with wheezing verbs, suffocated under the weight of his own staggering ignorance. Surrounding him are the usual suspects: cowards in expensive suits, servile sycophants clapping like trained seals, and racist opportunistic ghouls picking clean the bones of democracy. Liars, fools, and thieves all parasites fattening themselves on the hardships of the many. They stand in rigid formation, dead-eyed and soulless, their allegiance sworn not to country, not to principle, but to power, and the dark, festering rot that clings to it. And there he is the convicted wrong, the living embodiment of septic tank spew, his voice a noxious fog of grift and grievance. He lectures the world on right and wrong, irony clawing at the walls, desperate to escape the grotesque theatre of his moral void. The stomach turns, the air curdles, and for a moment, history itself recoils watching, in horror, as the great American experiment teeters on the precipice, led by a man who couldn’t spell “precipice” if his life depended on it.’

“I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016 and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic, morally vacant, and psychologically mangled he is. I do not wonder anymore. He won for that exact reason. He was not a candidate. He was a mirror. If you were a racist, you found your guy. If you were a misogynist, you found your guy. If money was your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart was armoured shut, you found your guy. If you mocked disabled people, you found your guy. If you hated intelligent people, you found your guy. If you were a rapist, you found your guy. If you enjoyed golden showers with Russian sex workers, you found your guy. If you had done absolutely nothing to confront your emotional wreckage, you found your guy. If you were a serial cheater, you found your guy. If you were a perpetual bankrupt, you found your guy. If you stiffed honest workers, you found your guy. If you were a conman, you found your guy. If you mocked people’s appearances, you found your guy. If you longed for a toxic Daddy, you found your guy. If you were dissociated and disembodied, you found your guy. If you were unconscionable in every economic dealing, you found your guy. If you lied as naturally as breathing, you found your guy. If you had never eaten a green vegetable, you found your guy. If you were a white supremacist, you found your guy. If your ego contained a hole so large not even the presidency could fill it, you found your guy. If you were a sociopath who cared not one molecule about other humans, you found your guy. If he had only two of these traits, he never would have won. He won because he had hundreds of them, and millions of people recognized themselves in at least one. This has never been about Trump. It has always been about the people who finally had their worst instincts validated. Trump did not create the cruelty, he licensed it. He handed out permission slips for hate. He is merely a symptom of a far deeper disease: collective toxicity. If there is one sentence that explains Trump’s power, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” That is the part that should chill the spine. Who knew that tens of millions of Americans were thinking such unconscionable things about their fellow citizens? Who knew how many white men felt so threatened by women and challenged by minorities that they were ready to torch democracy to feel big again? Who knew that after decades of apparent progress on race and gender, so many people were living in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to legitimize their worst selves and convert their bitterness into political power? We were living in a fool’s paradise. We aren’t anymore." — Michael Jochum

The average American Trump supporter is a gun toting, neoliberal, bear shooting, death penalty supporting, misogynist, who believe that LGBT people should be stoned to death Old Testament style, a white supremacist, anti-vaccine, climate change denying, anti-evolution, anti- science, flat earth believing, pro-life, anti- intellectual, sanctimonious evangelical Christian, Islamophobic bigot. Chem trail obsessive, xenophobic and a racist. Also ignorant, stupid, perverted and possibly demented.

Agree totally. Old but still elevent. “But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners, the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that! You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you….they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you. They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it. George Carlin

Tumpism depends on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the “deep state” and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right. Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralysed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by playing on the notion that government is innately evil and must not be trusted. The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump’s statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has “total authority”, and on the other that “I don’t take responsibility at all”. Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.

But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump’s presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it. In the USA there are very powerful interests who demand “freedom” in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that “freedom” is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my freedom to go to the barber (“I Need a Haircut” read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection. Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder. And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realisation that the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here. That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US – it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behaviour has become normalised. When the freak show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality. And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has many more months in power. In his inaugural address he evoked “American carnage” and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is revelling in it. He is in his element. As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in future it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he returns in some way, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics. Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine.’ the USA great again.

’

“I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016 and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic, morally vacant, and psychologically mangled he is. I do not wonder anymore. He won for that exact reason. He was not a candidate. He was a mirror. If you were a racist, you found your guy. If you were a misogynist, you found your guy. If money was your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart was armoured shut, you found your guy. If you mocked disabled people, you found your guy. If you hated intelligent people, you found your guy. If you were a rapist, you found your guy. If you enjoyed golden showers with Russian sex workers, you found your guy. If you had done absolutely nothing to confront your emotional wreckage, you found your guy. If you were a serial cheater, you found your guy. If you were a perpetual bankrupt, you found your guy. If you stiffed honest workers, you found your guy. If you were a conman, you found your guy. If you mocked people’s appearances, you found your guy. If you longed for a toxic Daddy, you found your guy. If you were dissociated and disembodied, you found your guy. If you were unconscionable in every economic dealing, you found your guy. If you lied as naturally as breathing, you found your guy. If you had never eaten a green vegetable, you found your guy. If you were a white supremacist, you found your guy. If your ego contained a hole so large not even the presidency could fill it, you found your guy. If you were a sociopath who cared not one molecule about other humans, you found your guy. If he had only two of these traits, he never would have won. He won because he had hundreds of them, and millions of people recognized themselves in at least one. This has never been about Trump. It has always been about the people who finally had their worst instincts validated. Trump did not create the cruelty, he licensed it. He handed out permission slips for hate. He is merely a symptom of a far deeper disease: collective toxicity. If there is one sentence that explains Trump’s power, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” That is the part that should chill the spine. Who knew that tens of millions of Americans were thinking such unconscionable things about their fellow citizens? Who knew how many white men felt so threatened by women and challenged by minorities that they were ready to torch democracy to feel big again? Who knew that after decades of apparent progress on race and gender, so many people were living in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to legitimize their worst selves and convert their bitterness into political power? We were living in a fool’s paradise. We aren’t anymore." — Michael Jochum

Someone asked, “Why do some British people not like Trump?” An articulate and witty writer wrote the following response: “A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Obama possessd. So, the stark contrast does throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty, or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I do not say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it is a fact. He does not even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he does not just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and automatic nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance, or depth. It is all surface. Some might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we do not. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He is not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He is more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully and racist. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So, the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a few of us– of look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: You do not need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty hard to miss. After all, it is impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumps of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created? If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

Nate Whight

Predictable.

With men such as these what hope have we got?

The worst houshold chore. So irritating and time consuming. Then I bought a ‘self cleaning’ oven. A life changer.

Beautiful? “We behold the face of nature bright with gladness… we do not see or we forget that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life…” Casrles Darwin

“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ (parasitic wasps]) with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.” Charles Darwin. Do these people mean the designer, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, creator, Jehovah, or the lord god that gave that gave us viruses, deadly bacteria, genetic diseases, parasites, , volcanos, earthquakes, blindness, cancers, floods, droughts, starvation, meteorites, death from lightning strikes, pestilence, holy wars, tidal waves, asbestos, infant mortality, trachoma, life threatening radioactive elements, solar flares, malaria, smallpox, despots, dictators, slavery, mass extinctions, ice ages, trachoma, hare lips, cleft palates, animal sacrifices, infant genital mutilation, mental illness depression, bilharzia and anxiety, autism, Parkinson’s disease, Hansons disease, hernias, the appendix, compacted wisdom teeth, acne, dementia and complete morons?

“The God of the bible is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, slavery condoning, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”. Richard Dawkins

Atheists do not say there is no god. They say that there is absolutely zero evidence to justify the claim. If God exists, why does he behave like a narcissistic absentee landlord with a flair for blood rituals and dietary restrictions? The Abrahamic deity, revered across continents, seems less like a cosmic architect and more like a Bronze Age tribal chieftain with anger management issues. Yet billions genuflect before him daily. Religious faith is often praised as a virtue. But what other domain celebrates belief without evidence? Would you board a plane built by someone who “just felt” the wings would hold? Would you trust a surgeon who prays instead of sterilizing instruments? Richard Dawkins famously called faith “a process of non-thinking.” Yet society elevates it above reason, as if ignorance were a badge of honour. Why is faith exempt from the scrutiny we apply to every other claim? Religion thrives not because it is true, but because it is comforting. It offers immortality, cosmic justice, and a celestial surveillance system that rewards obedience. Freud called religion “a universal obsessional neurosis.” Is it any wonder that belief correlates strongly with existential insecurity? Consider: If you were guaranteed eternal life through science, would you still need God? Or is belief merely a coping mechanism dressed in sacred robes? The Bible commands love, yet sanctions genocide (see Deuteronomy 20:16). It preaches humility yet demands worship. It forbids murder yet glorifies divine slaughter. If morality comes from God, why does it resemble the ethics of a medieval warlord? Sam Harris argues that morality predates religion and is better served by reason and empathy than by scripture. So why do we outsource ethics to ancient texts? Enter the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Church of the SubGenius, and the Invisible Pink Unicorn parody religions that expose the absurdity of faith by mimicking its structure. Ethan Quillen’s “The Satirical Sacred” explores how these mock faiths challenge religious privilege and reveal the arbitrary nature of belief. Ask yourself: If a belief system is indistinguishable from parody, should it be taken seriously? Religion is not benign. It fuels sectarian violence, suppresses scientific progress, and enforces archaic social norms. From the Crusades to anti-vaccine movements, faith has often been a force of regression. Shouldn’t beliefs be judged by their consequences? Religion persists not because it is rational, but because it is ritualized, institutionalized, and incentivized. It is a cultural fossil revered, untouchable, and absurd. The atheist does not merely reject God; he rejects the intellectual laziness that sustains Him. Do you believe because it is true, or because you were told to? And if the answer is the latter, what else might you be wrong about?

I see. The philosophical view that truth, knowledge, ethical values, and norms are not absolute or universal, but instead depend on the specific framework, culture, historical period, or observer perspective holding them. If right and wrong are purely relative to a culture or individual, there is no logical basis to condemn atrocities, human rights abuses, or oppression (such as slavery or torture) committed by others who hold different cultural norms. So radical Islam is just as moral as pacifism? Slavery as in the Old Testament is just fine?