Bell Witch is like this. Their album Mirror Reaper is technically one “song.”

The axe and bundle of sticks is called a fasces. It is an ancient Roman symbol of absolute power of the law displayed by magistrates to indicate they had the authority to kill you. It evolved in meaning over time and generally became a symbol of the power of the state.

The word fascism is derived from fasces and the symbol was used by the Italian fascists in the 1930s and 1940s. It is also prominent in US iconography predating the rise of fascism in Italy in the 30s and can be found inside the Congress building, the pediment of the Supreme Court building, and was once featured on coinage, specifically the Mercury Dime.

The other flag is the is the Flag of Falange. The Falange, like the fasces, is an old symbol of power; however unique to Spain. The yoke and arrows symbol date back to the 15th century and were created when Isabella and Ferdinand married.

The Falange was the symbol used by the Nationalists, specifically the Falangists, during the Spanish Civil war in the 1930s. The Franco dictatorship that emerged was a brutal autocratic regime (and the Falangists are part of the European rise of fascism in the 1930s).

The yoke and arrows, like the fasces can be found on flags, documents, and statues prior to the rise of fascism. But, like the swastika, there’s no going back once associated with a fascist movement. These are nationalist, fascist, and authoritarian symbols.

Garnished with what?

Granted, bananas weren’t always as sweet as they are now, so I could imagine this working really well with plantains.

My univeristy library would often have one or two copies of the current textbook on course reserve in the library. This meant that 1) you had to know where the course reserves were, 2) hope you could get it before one of the other 100-150 students also taking that course got it first, and 3) hope some dickhead didn’t just take it off the shelf and hide it in their study carrel or in a quiet corner of the library. Number 3 gets worse the higher the level of degree you are studying.

Moore told NPR in an interview released Tuesday that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”

“What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,’” Moore said. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”

If they think Christ is too weak and his words outdated, then maybe they should stop calling themselves Christians?

Apologies for the memories.

What really made my head spin was encountering the self-loathing types who would argue against their own interests. I recall listening to a man, who had lived with another man for about 20 years, tell me that gay marriage was wrong but that he wanted his partner, who was a few decades younger, to be taken care of when he eventually passed.

That was when I truly realized that something was wrong with everything.

“Exceptions to the rule” were so ingrained in every one when I lived in the south that it was impossible to have a decent conversation about anything.

My gay cousin is fine, but gay people…

My best friend from high school, who is black, is fine, but black people are…

My abortion was necessary but abortion at large is wrong…

My trans child needs gender affirming care but…

My Latino workers are upstanding people but Latinos are…

My EBT/Snap benefits are deserved but people on welfare…

My drug use is fine and doesn’t harm anyone but…

I mean, I know this is a general human trait, but it felt almost institutionalized to a point where people could say incredibly horrible shit about people and then deftly sidestep the contradiction when called out. It really did feel like being in a fever dream (and not from the crippling humidity and heat).

You know, we’re living in a society! We’re supposed to act in a civilized way!

I remember a buffet place—it may have been a Golden Corral, not sure—that had a sealed off smoking section with a glass wall, one of those “air doors” above the sliding door that function like an air lock, and a separate AC system.

It was always weird to look into that space and watch the lonely people smoking and eating.

Every other restaurant was a smoking free-for-all.

Thanks!

What band is this?

To be fair, the schisms have been occurring for like 200 years.

In a similar vein is A Canticle for Liebowitz which is about an order of Monks whose goal is to preserve all technology and information after an apocalypse scenario. I think it may have been the inspiration for the Brotherhood of Steel.

It moves through time and shows how ignorance of technology can mix too easily with religious power.

What do trees have to do with computers?

DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD are formatting conventions for expressing dates. The date itself is probably converted from some date object anyway, like the Unix Epoch, and can be expressed in any variety of formats.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025 is a date. dddd, mmm dd, yyyy or %A, %B %d, %Y is a format.

Edit: I’m pretty sure I misread the comment above.

Why wasn’t he arrested and charged for this before being sent to El Salvador? If he is this heinous of a criminal, why was he the alternate for the seat on the flight down to El Salvador?

Let’s argue for argument’s sake that he is the kind of person the DOJ claims he is. Does this mean he is guilty before being given a chance to defend himself? Shouldn’t he be afforded an opportunity to hear the charges and offer a defense? Granted, immigrants without citizenship can be deported for any criminal activity, but this guy had a court order preventing that. So why couldn’t the DOJ arrest and charge him before sending him to a death prison? Wouldn’t it be in the interest of the nation to maybe find out more about his network before disappearing him, especially since they claim he smuggled thousands of people?

This is some kafkaesque, fascist, dumbass bullshit.

Serial killers need patterns, process, and specific situations tailored to their individual neuroses. They are driven or compelled to kill to create or recreate certain events. That’s one thing that separates them from mass murderers or spree killers.

This guy was just in it for money. Mass murderer, yes, but there have been mafia hitmen with more morals than this fuck.

The scale of this, and the callousness of it, are far closer to Hitler and other genocidal maniacs because none of them wanted to get their hands dirty; they’d never kill anyone, personally. At least serial killers are into DIY and often are quite proud of their fucked up accomplishments.

It really says something about this guy’s absolute depravity when a comparison to a serial killer makes someone say “you know, that’s offensive to serial killers.”

I’m not disagreeing with what you said, I’m just frustrated because this guy was worse than serial killers and that is really something else.

Ha, fair. I was concerned you were about to drop some non-Euclidean Cthulhu deep-magic on us.

How? Doesn’t this run afoul of the inequality theorem?

I’m just going to drop selections from the Troma catalog in here:

• The Toxic Avenger
• Surf Nazis Must Die
• Class of Nuke ‘em High
• Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD
• Tromeo and Juliet

These are objectively shitty movies. Most of these movies are irredeemable; hell, some of them are down right an exercise in poor taste. A lot of it hasn’t aged well, and I’m not talking about the cinematography. I haven’t kept up with Troma in the 21st century, though, so maybe Troma has gotten worse-better or better-worse?

However, I find joy in these movies because they are like a time warp back to New Jersey and New York in the 80s and 90s. They were so low budget and always filmed around New York (except for Toxic Avenger II which somehow was filmed in Japan), that they used a lot of family members of the cast and crew or random locals as extras. It is obvious that a lot of people on screen probably didn’t know they were being filmed (or if they did, didn’t realize what type of movie they were in). There’s bad hair and makeup (but not from the effects department), and thick accents and regionalisms that have faded. There are mainstreets and skylines that don’t exist anymore, or if they do, are wildly different. It is amazing to catch a glimpse of an era that doesn’t exist anymore. This exists in all old movies, but the low-budget realness hits differently.

Most of these movies are trash, but they’re my trash. Apologies to Mr. Kaufman.