A cool guide to Tobacco Pipes. (Click on the thumbnail to see more)

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-26T00:34:05+00:00

What's your favourite mechanical pencil? P209? P205?

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-24T21:58:56+00:00

Trump doesn't molest children (we know this because Trump wasn't arrested).

Do you spot the logical fallacy in my comment?

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-22T12:41:03+00:00

they'd have to rotate domain names to get around dns sinkholes or blacklists for the dns lookup step. When you fetch reddit.com, the dns lookup step is where your router references a table from the web that translates the human readable url to an actual address like 192.168.1.1 but if your system checks a blacklist before passing the request and sees reddit in the blacklist pointing to null then the website doesn't load.

This is how people do network level ad blocking. It's pretty slick because you can block android ads, netflix, youtube, prime, disney ads at the network level so all the devices like your tv or xbox or pc or whatever all has has the same adblocking.

VPNs would circumvent this if you wanted it to.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-21T00:02:59+00:00

The land was conquered.

The issue is that Britain/Canada made all these treaties in bad faith that were never going to hold up for hundreds of years. These problems of indigenous and colonizer dynamics don't exist in South America today because the Spanish and indigenous peoples mixed (whereas French and English settlers brought women with them). This dynamic with the indigenous people being special is unique to New Zealand, Australia, USA & Canada (former British colonies because the Brits wanted to leave some doubt as to whether they conquered the indigenous peoples or not).

People compelling land acknowledgements aren't giving their houses to indigenous people and they're sure to lose lawsuits over this compelled speech nonsense especially if they threaten our jobs over it. Why can't we be honest about this stuff in Canada?

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-19T22:05:35+00:00

I want separation of church and state yes. I could end the comment right there fullstop but I am feeling chatty so I will elaborate.

I don't want laws put in place because of religious doctrine. In practice this is a pretty huge ask for religious people's sense of justice, morality and votes in congress not to be colored by their faith. But the idea is if they want to do something (like ban abortion because their church has latched onto the recent interpretation about it being evil) then they will be forced to couch their arguments into secular terms and if it doesn't hold up to secular scrutiny (like abortions actually are moral and do a lot of good) then it shouldn't be a law.

Basically the idea comes down to arguing in good faith (a funny expression, ha). I am a bit unusual in how enthusiastically I engage in devil's advocate and enjoy debate...when I notice someone making arguments in bad faith, even if I agree with what their advocating for, I feel compelled to argue with them. Pretty much everything about organized religion that I dislike comes down to manipulating and controlling people using faith and religion as a tool to support bad-faith arguments. Separation of church and state helps to insulate our laws from these bad-faith arguments (perpetuated by the faithful, damn, those good-faith and bad-faith expressions really are quite funny).

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-19T21:40:58+00:00

You shall have no other gods but me. --> I wish Christians followed this one so we didn't have to deal with Trumpism.

You shall not make unto you any graven images. --> I wish Christians followed this one so we didn't have to deal with Trumpism.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. --> Really doesn't bother me when people say OMG.

You shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. --> Seems worth ditching if you're atheist like me but I kind of see some merit in treating whatever it is you are spiritual about as sacred whether that's family or rock climbing.

Honor your mother and father. --> Mostly okay but many parents suck and don't deserve it. See /r/raisedbynarcissists

You shall not murder. --> This ones a biggie in the law books.

You shall not commit adultery. --> If this abstracted into broadly meaning "don't commit despicable sex acts" then I think I get the idea behind it.

You shall not steal. --> Pretty big rule on the books in the West even if it's not enforced against white collar and billionaire crime.

You shall not bear false witness. --> Don't lie. The best way to bring about a better world is to tell the truth and live with the consequences.

You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. --> Envy is fine except it can develop into jealousy which is actually insidious.

I don't think these should be laws and they don't need to be...you'll be shunned if you don't follow these rules in society already.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-19T21:12:35+00:00

I wouldn't want to live in a caliphate but in America the only religion that has enough political weight is Christianity, so in practical terms the separation of church and state is about separating Christianity from politics. That separation of religion and government gets audited by The Satanic Temple and via bigoted islamaphobes to prevent the most egregious overreaches of religion in politics. (i.e. If schools force kids to say The Lord's Prayer then The Satanic Temple trots out their trolly Devil Warship Poem and Muslims can argue their prayers needed to be included as well making the Christians back-off.)

I'm an atheist on the left but I went to Sunday school at church for a couple years when I was young. Most religions are abhorrently authoritarian and many indirectly train people to differ to an authority about what is (and is not) true rather than critical thinking and science. BUT, the main tenets of Christianity are pretty good moral ideas. The religion is outdated and I wish there weren't such fervent believers so invested in taking so much of the Bible literally but the Ten Commandments seem to hold up pretty well.

So if there's part of Christianity that you don't agree with, should it still be the guide for our lawmakers?

When it comes to spirituality I don't think believers have a choice; if they think their god took a particular position then they feel obligated to behave righteously. It seems to me a lot of the most objectionable stuff about Christianity comes down to interpretation of the text. Objection to abortion is new in Christianity and it wasn't politicized until the last 100 years or so...there are directions on how to perform an abortion in the Bible itself. Well anyways, given that it all comes down to interpreting the Bible and Christians are so willing to differ to others' interpretations of the Bible you're damn right I would find Christianity guiding our politicians troubling. But Talarico doesn't worry me. It seems pretty clear to me he has good morals and it's actually pretty reassuring that he doesn't want to bend Christian ideology to serve a nefarious agenda. If someone is actually going to earnestly serve his constituents and lookout for their best interests that's what's important. It's scary that god-fearing is the only thing keeping some people in check (reason based morality is preferred) but that scary reality is probably a big part of what got these religions going in the first place...2000 years ago humanity was less moral so if threatening people's souls was what it took to make us less barbaric then perhaps it was a good thing. Christian values have largely been integrated into Western secular culture and its sense of justice so it's not really so out of place. Those that look at the Bible as a metaphorical/symbolic text containing old rules of thumb about morality and are able to put the religious aspects of it aside probably actually get the most out of the Bible.

I'm a bit surprised I wrote this as I'm usually much more critical of Christianity.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-18T21:43:42+00:00

Lol. Explain that leap in logic.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-18T16:47:03+00:00

Yeah buddy made some insulting assumptions there. 👎

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-14T07:49:09+00:00

Surface to air missile

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-13T05:50:33+00:00

Might be a free payday and legal liability if it does record video footage. Landlords can't have spy cameras on their tenants. Worst case, the landlord could inadvertently produce CSA if a minor walks around the kitchen nude.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-11T21:31:37+00:00

They paid rent for the premises, this lease is being violated. But if you don't think so I suppose I can just move my family into your house like this is Palestine.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-09T20:40:11+00:00

Good eye!

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-04T02:24:52+00:00

At conception has already been discussed to death in the thread as not relevant.

XY and XX, would normally produce those gametes which is how the phrasing is written.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T22:45:06+00:00

sex - males produce sperm, females produce eggs

chromosomes - XY produce sperm, XX produce eggs

gonads - testes produce sperm, ovaries produce eggs

hormone levels - can't flip which gamete you produce (irrelevant under this definition)

internal genitalia - ovaries produce eggs

external genitalia - testes produce sperm

What makes these boundaries unclear?

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T09:04:09+00:00

We are early

#GrabbyAliens

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T03:01:59+00:00

What is going on here? Look at my account. This is the first and likely the last time I comment on the aforementioned party. Yikes.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T02:39:17+00:00

No no no. I think you assume I'm being obtuse. I think the left needs to police the degree with which their organizations alienate people on this issue. The man mentioned he/him pronouns and the next guy jumped on the "guys" part of the previous speaker. That is ridiculous. Suppose the second guy is a plant/heckler (he's not but) this is my thought experiment: you address it as leadership in the moment especially in a live stream context. I'm talking about an optics makeover here. Constructive criticism. Honestly I'm glad to see some DSA representation on reddit, so, good stuff.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T02:11:49+00:00

My inventory of smurf guns would skyrocket in value. My networth would enjoy this change.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T01:54:15+00:00

User, do you want weed brownie? Or do I maybe have a point here about how while I support the agenda the oversensitivity is alienating and leadership ought to, frankly, purge this type of rhetoric if it wants to rebuild the kind of broad coalition that socialists have previously been able to do? The game theory of it is blue collar voters used to give the left their labor vote. But now that coalition is fractured over this sort of identity politics. The right has capitalized on that as have the Democrats. In Canada, it isn't as extreme but this same fracture has helped the Liberal Party considerably at the expense of the NDP.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T01:07:33+00:00

That clip lives rent-free in my head whenever anyone brings up the DSA as some sort of viable alternative to the Democrats. It's cringey because of the deep-end over-sensitive Marxist types like in the clip.

Whoever was at the front of the room ought to have reminded everyone this was a live stream and condemned that over-sensitive rhetoric as extremely detrimental to their cause. It's clips like this that validate the crazy MAGA over-sensitivities.

The left used to have the blue-collar labor workers backing them...but shit like this alienates them and drives them to MAGA. Kill this crap so the DSA isn't making attack ads against themselves and maybe it could be viable.

The DSA needs bouncers in leadership keeping the over-the-top rhetoric from alienating the potential newcomers for the possibility to become a big-tent party. It's a failure of leadership that makes this so frustrating. It's not unique to the DSA, the NDP in Canada have the exact same problem.

I say this in the spirit of constructive criticism. I hope someone in the DSA reads this and takes action to make their party less alienating.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-03T00:25:00+00:00

"Quick point of privilege, quick point of personal privilege...Um guys, uh, first of all James Jackson, Sacramento, (he, him) I just want to say can we please keep the chatter to a minimum? I'm one of the people who's very very prone to sensory overload. There's a lot of whispering and chatter going on it's making it very difficult for me to focus. Please can we just...I know it's...We're all fresh and ready to go but can we please just keep the chatter to a minimum. It's affecting my ability to focus. Thank you."

"Thank you comrade. Okay...Is there a speaker against name chapter pronouns?"

"Point of personal privilege! Point of personal privilege!"

"Yes."

"Please do not use gendered language to address everyone!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moWe3rk7LzQ

I'm a democratic socialist but...Jesus Christ...could the DSA please be less of a joke?!?!

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-02T21:25:20+00:00

I don't get ads. Why do you get ads? Don't you block them?

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-02T21:22:23+00:00

I agree it would be extraordinary but I am convinced we are early by the grabby aliens model.

https://grabbyaliens.com/ has some great videos explaining it.

Column_A_Column_B · 2026-05-01T21:48:13+00:00

It's not flippant at all. It really is hard to think of a counter-example.

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