I feel like the dialogue in the last panel is unnecessary.

Et tu, Phoenix Jones?

Thing is, even with how bafflingly evil Google is, the one corporate service I could see myself paying for is the YouTube subscription. I use the phone app a lot, it would make sense for me.

The problem is that they’re notoriously ban-happy with paying VPN users, due to some of them using their exit countries to pay less for a service. Thing is, if I tried to pay for premium from a country I’d exit from, I’d be paying more compared to where I am. I’m perfectly content overpaying slightly for a few things online with this situation, I don’t buy much, I’m fine. I also don’t know where the line is. If I pay for my account with a card from my IRL location, using the pricing for said location, will I get my account suspended after I jump back on the VPN? It’s not like they’ll publicly announce a clear breakdown of what is and isn’t okay.

Google knowing I use a public VPN on Google services is not an issue for me. I don’t do anything sketchy, I really just want an uncensored internet out of the eye of my ISP.

Something something Overton window.

It’s the most popular sporting event on the planet in a country with 300 million people, this is nothing like the Club World Cup that was held this year. The lack of tourists might not be a problem, save for maybe atmosphere.

This chart, with the huge ticket prices, is why the US was chosen.

I think they used to allow them outright before, or at least were very lax.

RIP that one CLI Discord client. That had all I wanted out of Discord for 90% of the time I have the app open.

That’s… concerning.

I definitely don’t expect to find solid resources on the Q fallout in the Middle East. But getting to grips with the actual magical political mechanics that millions of people now believe in? That’s what I want. Everyone around me is using the words “deep state” now, it’s not funny at all.

I think YouTube would nuke my recommendation algorithm from orbit if I commit an hour every week to this guy’s videos. But I’m glad there’s light being shed from that perspective.

I know there was a short podcast series that goes through the cliff notes of the whole thing’s history by Jake Hanrahan some time ago but this stuff has evolved so much since that was recorded like two years ago. That’s more of what I’m interested in, a more journalistic look structured for someone who is a complete outsider.

Your guy is talking from an American Christian perspective, and American Christianity is basically an alien cult to me (I hope nobody takes offense to this, but Christianity here is much more… grand and ancient and focused on bringing people together and not deeply horrifying?). Like you joke about the rapture but American Christians invent a new rapture every other week, while our guys’ rapture is set in stone to be in the indefinite future, and anyone in my society claiming to have a date for a rapture would be referred to a psychiatrist by the clergy. I typically have more bad things than good to say about the church but comparing to what you guys have makes me feel like it’s not so bad at all.

I think the average person is seriously underestimating the horrific damage to people’s mental models of the world this movement? Cult? Politico-occultist messianic dispensationalism? Virulent cognitohazard thing is unleashing on humanity.

I always wonder if it’s worth trying to find good resources on what’s going on or if it’s just a way to completely lose your mind.

These ideas are trickling down into peoples’ worldviews right here in Lebanon and it’s getting harder to track. It’s the ultimate big tent conspiracy theory, and it’s supercharging decades of concerning currents in my own society.

Is there a straightforward sane place to read up or listen about this stuff from an outsider’s perspective?

That’s a shame. Never had any of their household appliances so I wouldn’t know. I’m mostly thinking about power tools, auto parts, and like those laser distance things.

I hate paying 5x for a German-made Bosch spare part for my car when I’m tired of the AliExpress quality lottery but I have to admit it’s one of the few hardware manufacturers I still think pretty highly of. They make Dremels too, right? I imported one of those at an extortionate price and haven’t regretted a single penny, reminds me of how old durable tools were built to actually last.

When I was a kid and you picked up something with a (for example) Sony logo on it, you know you were holding something that was at least relatively well made. Nowadays pretty much every single company gives me marrow-sucking quality-be-damned vibes. And come to think of it Bosch was not one of the companies I saw that way.

Disgusting how they’re treating their workers (who I’m assuming are damn good at their job given how highly I think of Bosch’s stuff), but someone still needs to be doing that job.

boy that infant really shouldn’t have let that cluster bomb fall on his head was he even trying

DankPods my beloved as well. He’s not very technical with software so it’s quite interesting to hear him talk about it.

Wouldn’t even call it a pun, as someone pointed out already. I’m going to sacrifice the joke in the name of explaining it.

This meme says Morning of Strawberries (صباح الفراولة) which is both clunky (Arabic’s got a poetic quality and these two words put together just intuitively do not work that way. It has the meter of a punchline if that makes sense) and silly, but with the textured elephant and the 13x12 resolution as you can probably guess it’s just a surreal meme.

But now you know why it’s a surreal meme.

Come back next week for the much less wholesome next episode of Arabic forwards from Arabic grandma: videos alleging the Jews invented homosexuality, cancer, and sex

Well, eating > restaurants > a list with potential promoted entries.

I really don’t think the intention of integrating this “intelligence” into Facebook is explicitly to make us dumber. I think the only real purpose is to supercharge marketing. Eroding the mental capacity of functional human beings is just a happy little accident.

The Italian food thing is pretty common in many cultures, I’ve seen it in a few countries myself and it’s big deal here in Lebanon. My own parents used to be livid about me bringing friends over and not offering anything to eat when I was younger. It’s a part of my culture I’m a bit resistant to doing, I don’t know, it’s pretty intuitive if it’s time to eat or not, and if someone’s dropping by between meals I am totally fine not setting the whole ass table. Maybe a beer or coffee (the good stuff, it’s a nice thing to share) nowadays.

The Dutch food thing has zero resemblance to my culture but it is in line with something I’ve read before about western (at least the description I read was western) food habits. Going completely off the top of my head here. As far as I remember, historically you had one heavy meal and everything else was a smaller meal. I think I was looking up “dinner” vs “supper”. The impression was that the word “dinner” was originally for the big meal of the day, and that “supper” was for a light meal at the very end of the day. “Breakfast” is more of literally breaking a fast than it is a whole meal and lunch referred to a small mid-workday meal.

So I think the idea of temperature might be connected to the size or heaviness of the meal in your Dutch thing.

Or maybe my nerves are completely cooked after work and this is more word salad than word coherent comment.

I wouldn’t blink if you told me these were randoms you picked up on the streets of Beirut or Latakia. I can probably find a doppelgänger for every person in these photos in a 5-minute stroll down the Ras Beirut corniche and recreate them with very little effort.

I wish there was anything to say about this like “Isn’t it cute how racists are willfully blind to what’s in front of them” but it’s not. I’m beyond finding the humor in shit like this.

I can’t wait until we (Lebanon) get sanctioned over this.

His face looks a bit like a stereotypical random Syrian teenager as well to me which is funny.

The monkey’s paw curls.

We now have a one-state solution where every citizen regardless of origin has full legal rights, stolen land and houses have been returned, the renamed towns have been reassigned their original names, and a sizable proportion of colonists have willingly chosen to leave because they were only ever interested in being the protected class in an apartheid society. Robust border infrastructure has been rebuilt to Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, with a direct maglev like from Al Quds to every major nearby city. The world rightly recognizes the crimes that have occurred west of the river and the Nakba now sits in the global public consciousness in the same place as Rhodesia and the Nazi Holocaust.

The catch? The country cannot be named Palestine. It has the be named Donald J Trump (PBUH) Presents: The Miraculous Peace in our Time West of the River of America Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter, Buy Gold and War Bonds

Too optimistic huh. We are allowed to dream

I always had the impression that there was an underlying censorship issue over in the US (what with everyone there hearing nothing good about Palestinians for the past half century) but to have it be so open and discussed in such a euphemistic and yet banal way, wow. I wonder how these quotes we are seeing on our screens will be remembered.

“Permission structure” on its own is incredible.