Not job-related, but I had a “friend” who was similarly stressing me out. I started to realize how abusive he was, and how much he would take advantage of my generosity, etc. It got to the point where whenever my phone would notify me of a text message, I had a startle response and felt stressed out, because I was…

I noticed that, too. It’s really bothering me. I don’t understand the decisions the coders make, like at all.

The only way I’ve ever made it out of the greys is when one of the staff brought me out. Anna Merlan ungreyed me when I responded to her farewell post. She really is the one I miss most. Thankfully I can still read her on Vice (but not comment...).

Remember when republicans were merely obstructionists? “The party of ‘no’”? They’ve moved beyond that into active malevolence. They still do the obstruction thing in congress, because they’re the minority party, now. But when they’re in charge, like DeFuckwits, their entire agenda consists of hurting people that they…

Just a reminder that when right-wingers talk about valuing “freedom” (and I’m not just talking about republicans, but “Libertarians” as well), it’s a fucking LIE. They don’t give a fuck about freedom, and never have, unless it’s their “freedom” to tell everyone else how they can live their lives, or what they can or…

Or, that person’s descendants would have somehow prevented the colonization of California, thereby keeping Meghan from ever owning that property?

She was extremely lucky that the bear was distracted by the dogs when she pushed it. It only noticed her at the last second. If it had noticed her a second earlier we might be reading about her severe injuries.

So, in your “vast experience”, does it not bother you that this guy is trying to pass off his violent behavior as a mental health crisis of some sort? In your “vast experience”, do people with mental health problems always exhibit violent behavior, or is that a social stigma that needs to be fucking done away with?

When people experience a psychotic break (not a manic episode or paranoia) they aren’t typically aware of it. You’d have to have quite a bit of personal experience with such episodes to be aware of it. It’s not just that line that tells me he’s full of shit - it’s everything he said and did during that incident.

If he was lucid enough to know that his behavior and reasoning could be interpreted as “insane”, then he wasn’t actually experiencing a psychotic break of any sort. The voice of “god” he was hearing? That was his own inner voice, expressing his own violent fantasies. He’s just another violent asshole trying to justify…

I believe it was Frank Herbert who said something along the lines of: Power doesn’t corrupt. Power attracts the corrupt[ible]. Absolute Power attracts the absolutely corruptible.

My mom chilled out a lot as she got older. I have no contact with my ex, thankfully (she was, among other things, a toxic narcissist).

Exactly.

I definitely know people who retired and moved to Maine (and New Hampshire). Well, at least during the summer months.

The born-again thing is something that managed to infect certain Catholics, despite having no roots in Catholicism itself. Obviously my mom was one, but I’ve also seen it happen to my ex.

I was living in VT in the 90s when the Island-Ponders were still active (they’d show up at festivals and such to recruit youngsters who didn’t know any better).  I’ve been in SoCal when what I call the “money cults” were pretty active, and watched my (now) ex get sucked into that. Watching the fervor grow in someone’s…

That seems like a fair assessment. I just hate when people throw the word “cult” around when it’s not appropriate. I’ve seen cults at work firsthand (and I’m not just referring to born-agains, at this point), and it leaves an impression on you. Like, literally hair-raising creep/terror shit.

It seemed to me that things were going pretty well up here in VT, but I wasn’t sure about the numbers. I guess my overall impression was correct. People took it seriously here, for the most part. Wore masks. Signed up to get vaccinated when it was available to them, etc. It was helpful that our dept of health had a…

What will also not be surprising (unfortunately so): right-wingers calling her “weak” for it.

That’s not really any different than any other version of christianity, and not exactly specific to “cults only”.