“The average US president has been charged with 1.54 felonies” factoid isn’t true. The average US President has been charged with 0 felonies. Donald trump, who has been charged with 71, is a statistical outlier and should not have been counted
Felonies Donld is now up to 79 felonies, for a statistical average of 1.71 felonies per president
Update:
With 91 felonies, felonies Donld has now broken the 2 felonies per president average average (2.02 felonies per president)
I’ve just had two kids in a row brag to me about how full and exciting their bookshelves at home are. Pfft, as if I care.
PSYCH! I adore it! Please tell me all about your favorite books and the way you like to rearrange them and what you learned from the book about bones you got last year as an SRP prize. I want to know it all.
My coworker is on vacation this week so I get to step in for Pokémon Club tonight! Should I be low key and wear my eeve sweatshirt or should I go all out and wear my gengar onesie?
My coworker is on vacation this week so I get to step in for Pokémon Club tonight! Should I be low key and wear my eeve sweatshirt or should I go all out and wear my gengar onesie?
1,500 drones light up the sky over Shenzhen on June 22 with a flying dragon
this amazing display kicked off China’s Dragon Boat Festival, taking place on the 5th day of the 5th month of the Chinese calendar, commemorating the ancient poet Qu Yuan
As someone who took etiquette lessons, politeness is an incredibly effective tool for disarming bigots. You can either force them to reconsider their words/actions by directly and calmly confronting their behavior (by using the rules of society in your favor), or you can dip entirely while they appear to be in the wrong.
Both options are great.
Because the thing is, when bigots pick fights, they are 100% counting on you to get louder than them. Or meaner. They want you to react emotionally and provide fodder for their ‘You’re Too Emotionally Immature To Understand’ cannon.
What they aren’t expecting you to do is say one of the following phrases in a polite, concerned tone:
Are you okay?
That’s not the kind of language I was raised to use with others.
Do you need a moment to think on why that wasn’t acceptable?
This is no way to engage in intelligent conversation. Please try that again in a kinder tone if you’d like this to continue. (I really like this one because it lets you turn their public-shame rhetoric around)
For those of you who’d are spiteful and/or dealing with Fundamentalists/Evangelicals/generally shitty Christians:
What’s happening in your life to cause you this much anger? I can’t imagine hurting so badly that I need to hurt other people.
Who taught you it was acceptable to treat other people this way? Certainly not the Jesus I remember.
Whatever happened to 'judge not lest ye be judged’?
If I talked like that in front of my parents or grandparents I would be ashamed.
I think there’s something you need to pray on before we try and have this conversation.
And my all time favorite:
“It sounds to me like there are some seriously dark and angry forces at work in your heart.”
(Nothing stops a Christian bigot in their tracks faster than implying the Devil is causing their bigotry. But you MUST be calm, polite, and gentle with your tone and wording. It is absolutely fair to twist the rules and play them at their own game, but you gotta play hard.)
TLDR: It’s much faster to use etiquette, politeness, and rhetoric reversal when eviscerating idiots online and in person, because they aren’t expecting you to weaponize their behaviors back in their direction. Don’t get angry, get spitefully polite! :)
My favourite one is “Do you think that this is a normal/acceptable thing to say/do?”
In Batman’s ongoing struggle to find the least humiliating way to be carried by Superman, he has Superman hold him under his arms and then the next day and picture of him being held like that gets posted next to this picture:
and Batman’s search for better positions continue
long bat in space
My fiancée has a statue she calls “Whee!” (please forgive my poor photography skills)
“Alright! Let’s just quickly go over your answers to our questionnaire in your application.”
As far as job interviews went, this one was rapidly moving up the list of utterly strange ones. For starters this was the fanciest office he had ever been in, and this was supposed to be an animal sanctuary. The amount of decorative pillows piled onto the chair he was currently trying to sit on would have been more appropriate for a lounge in a posh hotel.
The sanctuary manager – at least that’s how she had introduced herself – peered at the printed sheets of paper.
“So you have experience with animal handling?”
“During several internships, yes.”
“Wonderful. And horticulture?”
“I know how to keep a healthy habitat.”
“Excellent. And do you have any siblings?”
There it was, barely three questions in and already off the deep end. “Yes, three.”
The woman fixed two keen, dark eyes on him. “Three including you?”
“No, three besides me. I’m the second oldest, if that matters.”
“Ah! That’s alright then, Second of four, very good.”
By now he was looking at the manager with unrestrained wonder, eyebrows almost disappearing under his fringe.
“Well that all seems to be in order, just one more question—are you comfortable?”
He faltered, blinking. “I…well, to tell you to truth this chair could do with a few less pillows.”
To his amazement the manager’s face lit up with genuine delight. “Oh that is very good to hear. I do apologise for all that nonsense, but there’s rules against asking people about the circumstances of their birth, you know. Here, let me.”
He got to his feet, still rather stunned, and watched how the manager removed three pillows and, from underneath them all, a small green pea from his chair.
“There we are! Now, we’d be very glad to have you, you certainly meet all our qualifications, and I assure you we offer excellent terms and benefits. You clearly have plenty of experience with amphibians and birds, but you will need some on the job training, because apart from the usual frogs, swans and ravens, we also have clients in some of the rarer categories.”
“Clients? I thought this was an animal sanctuary,” he stammered.
“It most certainly is! Except our residents have not always been animals.” The manager smiled meaningfully. “You’d be surprised just how many people, especially royals, decide they would rather stay enchanted.” She looked a little embarrassed for a moment. “Which is of course exactly why I need to take certain precautions with my employees, you understand.”
He was pretty sure he did not at all understand, but he wasn’t about to admit that now. “Right.”
She peered at him again. “I do still need you to promise me not to fall in love with any of them.”
“Why on earth—”
“It’s happened before,” she said gravely. “We also have a couple of private parks, with a more human enclosure, I mean house, because we do get the occasional beastification.” She shook her head. “The last person we hired, well, our client was kind enough not to file an official complaint, on account of the whole finding his true love thing, but it was really very embarrassing.” He sat very still for a moment. “So, how many of those are there?”
“Beasts? Only two at the moment, since that unfortunate incident.”
“And your other…residents?”
“Hmm lets see, seven swans and seven ravens, three frogs, a stag, a hind, a fox and a bear. Well, and the cat, but she’s an exception, she lives in our head quarters and mostly looks after herself.” She gave him a rather worried look. “I haven’t scared you off, have I?”
He gave her a weak smile. “You promised me five weeks paid time off, so no you haven’t. But I am going to need some more information.”
“Wonderful,” she sighed. “In that case, let’s start with giving you a tour.”
