to be fair tho that jug is amazing

If I put it out there because I really wanted to go, and the money just came to me, could I then use that money for something worthwhile? Like ‘The Universe’ says ‘here’s that $800 you wanted’ and I can say ‘great, I know I said I wanted to go to Landmark but actually I want to pay my student loan bill’? That’s cool…

You’d be surprised how many people don’t really know how cults operate - they picture them as whackadoos who wear white robes and pick beans in fields or something. They actually don’t know the dynamics of how such groups operate - either you’re wacky or you’re normal. So they see relatively normal, happy looking…

You need to be smart and charismatic at least. I am fairly sure that my former boss, like, read a book on how to be a cult leader, tried it in the workplace and failed (I’m half-joking. Only half). He just wasn’t smart or charismatic enough to attract followers.

In a ‘Tibetan Buddhist’ cult in Taipei, every time a member leaves or says something bad about the group, they are called ‘psychotic and disturbed’. Apparently everyone who stays is ‘sane’ and everyone who leaves is ‘crazy’. Every single one. Every time. No exceptions. All crazy.

I see this is a pattern among such…

4.) If, when you ask questions, you get angry defensive responses, get blamed for asking, get punished for asking, or get nonsensical or empty answers (“I’m not interested in that question, I feel like it puts me in a defensive posture when I have nothing to defend really” is both nonsensical and empty) or platitudes…

My goodness. Reading this reminded me so much of a group I know where I live in Taiwan, and their “guru” (a Taiwanese man who claims to be the reincarnation of an 11th century monk), actually called ‘The Master’ or ‘Master Wang’, sounds a lot like ‘International’. And they recruit young, lonely foreign expat women,…

trusTED

I’m not saying that Ted Cruz is the Ramsay of our time and secretly flays people.

But I’m also not not saying that.

Not just that they were using different magic and weren’t following the same leader (and perhaps the desert witch wasn’t as competent as Melisandre) but Mirri Maaz Duur almost certainly did it on purpose to punish Danaerys. Why would she help a woman who traveled with a horde who’d just destroyed her village?

As a permanent resident of Taiwan, go ahead and ask how Chinese treat Taiwanese even when vacationing in Taiwan itself :(

And China doesn’t even control Taiwan!

Too many actually believe it, though.

Sometimes I meet more thoughtful folks. Over lunar new year we went to Sri Lanka and met a Chinese couple who, learning that we live in Taiwan long-term, asked us what the Taiwanese really think about China as they know the news their own government allows won’t be accurate. I told…

*cry*

And the Taiwanese HATE it because they know they can’t win (right now) but they are absolutely not willing to ever be a part of China.

Also as a permanent resident of Taiwan, thank you for actually caring and raising awareness of the situation Taiwan is in. Too many people forget that a liberal democracy and…

Yup.

I live in Taiwan. Permanently.

China (the PRC government at least - obviously there are non-awful things in the country as a whole) is awful. Just the worst really.

I wouldn’t watch anything that’s been twiddled with to appease those assholes in Zhongnanhai.

Or cast a Japanese American actress (or a Japanese actress who can speak English).

Or just don’t mention what country Tibet is supposed to be in. It’s not like China doesn’t know Tibet exists - they rule it after all. And then don’t cast a white guy as Dr. Strange.

That doesn’t make it totally valid, it means you’re whoring out artistic sensibilities for a market, which makes it a worse movie, which means fewer people will be interested in seeing it when it gets critically panned. I mean, I realize it’s Marvel so who cares about its artistic merit, but I’m not going to see a…

I don’t see how the cops could have known what race the three girls were, so I don’t see how “they’d have rescued three white girls” is even remotely a reasonable take on this.

A murky pond with sucker mud, grasses, weeds, and being Florida, probably alligators and water moccasins too. It wasn’t a clear water pond with a rocky bottom.

YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH ABOUT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

I don’t always want extra warmth. (I live in the subtropics FWIW)