English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Xanne

00:41

@alphabet How blue is MA? Often it turns to a Republican/Libertarian governor—Weld, Romney, Baker, the

Baker would have run for reelection in ‘22 had Trump not threatened to primary him.

Robusto

MA is the smartest, best-educated state in the Union. That's how blue they are. Every district in MA went Democratic this year. That's how smart they are.

masslive.com/politics/election-results

tchrist

"Perfidious Celeste" :)

Robusto

I voted for a Republican governor there a couple of times, just to keep the Dems honest. Bill Weld for two terms. But Bill Weld would be called "RINO" by Trump. We didn't have any mouth-breathing gubernatorial candidates, or they would have lost.

alphabet

Nov 6, 2024 at 6:59, by alphabet

And I am proud that our dear Commonwealth voted for Harris 62-36, the second highest margin in the country according to current results.

CowperKettle

Japanese of the day: johatsu - vanished person

> Jōhatsu (Japanese: 蒸発, Hepburn: jōhatsu, lit. "evaporation") or jouhatsu refers to the people in Japan who purposely vanish from their established lives without a trace

Xanne

00:51

@CowperKettle Like hermits? Or just identity change?

alphabet

Of course in the city it was more like 80-20, and across the river around 90-10.

CowperKettle

@Xanne Identity change

Robusto

@CowperKettle 蒸発 just means "evaporation" ... It would be like referring to "the departed" instead of "the departed person."

Except without the verbing.

Xanne

I keep getting emergency messages about weather, in English and then Spanish: tormentas eléctricas.

tchrist

All you have to do is put on a different superhero costume and nobody will know who you are.

Like Wonder Woman's.

@Xanne That's because lightning is much rarer there than many places in this nation.

Robusto

00:55

@tchrist It's definitely true that nobody would know who I am if I put on Wonder Woman's costume.

tchrist

Notice how the Californian coast is lightning impoverished.

Cerberus

Tell that to southern Chile.

Robusto

My wife would say, "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?"

Cerberus

Those poor guys.

alphabet

@Robusto Has there been an executive order against that sort of thing yet?

tchrist

01:01

Europe doesn't get much lightning compared to America.

Robusto

@alphabet It's just a matter of time.

alphabet

First men wear Wonder Woman costumes, next your kid's identifying as a dog and looking to get prosthetic paw implants /s

Robusto

@tchrist But whoa, how about central Africa?

@alphabet It's a slippery slope.

tchrist

> Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela experiences the most lightning in the world. The area is known as the "lightning capital of the world" and is home to the Catatumbo lightning phenomenon.

alphabet

Right after all sex ed is replaced by a pamphlet called "The importance of producing patriotic American babies"

tchrist

01:04

> Lake Maracaibo is the region with the most lightning in the world, with 233 lightning strikes per km2 per year.

Xanne

When I lived in the woods in the hills I had two trees that list major branches due to lightning.

Cerberus

@tchrist But Lake Victoria looks lightninger?

tchrist

> This gives Lake Maracaibo the highest number of lightning strikes per square kilometer in the world, at 250.[6] The region with the second-most is the village Kifuka, in the mountains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[7] where the elevation is around 1,700 metres (5,600 ft), receives 232 lightning strikes per square kilometer (600 per sq mi) a year.[2][8]

Distribution of lightning

The distribution of lightning, or the incidence of individual strikes, in any particular place is highly dependent on its location, climate, and time of year. Lightning does have an underlying spatial distribution. High quality lightning data has only recently become available, but the data indicates that lightning occurs on average 44±5 times every second over the entire Earth, making a total of about 1.4 billion flashes per year. == Ratios of lightning types == The lightning flash rate averaged over the Earth for intra-cloud (IC) + cloud-to-cloud (CC) to cloud-to-ground (CG) is in the ratio:...

alphabet

You know, I should stop offering absurd predictions about what Trump might do, since he always exceeds them

tchrist

A land whose luciérnagas all turn into relámpagos.

It's a proparoxytonic conspiracy.

Robusto

01:10

@tchrist La diferencia entre la palabra correcta y la palabra casi correcta es la diferencia entre un relámpago y una luciérnaga. —Mark Twain

tchrist

I remember when a friend from Lisbon visited Colorado. He got really freaked out by all our lightning in the summertime.

Cerberus

As long as you stay inside, it's fine, isn't it?

Maybe not if there are tall trees next to your house?

tchrist

Yes, almost always.

Looks like Trump has just told Bibi that America will occupy Gaza for him to help clear and deport all remaining Palestinians there.

Cerberus

Really?

tchrist

Apparently.

But remember that the more he says things that get people freaked out, the more he's trying to distract you from the things he's doing that he doesn't want you to notice.

> 19.03 EST
Trump says US will 'take over' the Gaza Strip and 'level' it
Trump once again says Gaza is a “demolition site” that is “very dangerous and very precarious”.

He says the Palestinians in Gaza should be moved to a “beautiful area with homes and safety …. so that they can live out their lives in peace and harmony”.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump says.

We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.

Cerberus

01:24

How would Trump do that.

It doesn't seem realistic.

@tchrist Hmm like which?

tchrist

@Cerberus That's exactly what I'm wondering.

Cerberus

Or maybe he is just crazy impulsive?

tchrist

The tariff thing was likely mostly something it didn't look like. It may have been to distract from the illegal things that the Musk–Miller–Trump regime are doing with the federal government. But it may also have been to manipulate the stock market.

Cerberus

Or to pressure the countries in question.

tchrist

Mexico, yes. But CANADA?!

Mexico will send more troops to the border and America will stop sending so many guys.

Canada will.... do what? Become part of the United States? That's not going to happen. All this is distraction of some sort. Greenland, Panama. Sorry, I just watched some of last night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Cerberus

01:39

I don't know, he may try to elicit some beneficial trade agreement from Canada?

Or push more companies to produce things in America for the American market?

CowperKettle

Eating from Drone Food Delivery

►

tchrist

What beneficial trade agreement could he elicit? Already there aren't tariffs.

And his fake-attempt to impose such in the name of a national security emergency that he concocted is illegal anyway.

The current trade agreement with Canada is the one that he himself had pushed through, with Republican help.

That's the one he was fake-bitching about.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus He will hire Musk's neurointerface company to install computers into the brains of all Palestinians and all Jews. Every time a person has any kind of malicious htought against the other race/enthicity, they are zapped with a tiny current to make it unpleasant. Voila!

tchrist

The amount of drugs and people secretly coming across the Canadian border cannot hold a candle to the scale of both of those from the Mexican border.

Cerberus

@tchrist I don't know what, exactly. But isn't there always money to squeezed out of neighbouring countries, one way or another?

But, yes, it is odd.

tchrist

01:45

And it will take a very long time till everything is known. I wouldn't put money on ever learning what this was all about in my lifetime.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Haha that would be perfect.

@tchrist Some people may talk.

tchrist

@Cerberus He and his cronies may well have cleaned up on the stock market in the past few days. We won't know.

Cerberus

Cleaned up?

tchrist

Because people who knew this was all a bluff could have used that to their advantage when it fell badly and then popped back up.

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

Maybe that's part of it?

tchrist

01:47

"cleaned up" = "made off like a bandit" = "got rich"

Yes, maybe it is.

Cerberus

Ordinary theft.

tchrist

It's a lot easier to see how money would work in that case than in nebulous ones.

Cerberus

One wonders whether the courts will stop Musk's most dastardly plans.

tchrist

@Cerberus It's all he ever does.

Cerberus

And I do hope Musk and Trump will get into a fight soon.

@tchrist Yeah.

tchrist

01:48

They might try. But there will be no punishment possible.

Cerberus

Not punishment, but stoppage?

tchrist

And the damage may have been done by the time they stop him.

Yes.

@Cerberus It seems inevitable.

Cerberus

People seem to be suing Musk already.

tchrist

Not new.

Cerberus

Over his attempts at accessing taxpayers' data?

tchrist

01:50

I can't keep track of all the suits that have hit the courts about all this in the past few days.

Cerberus

Hmm.

I haven't kept up at all.

Trying to read more fun things.

tchrist

I'd go find some but I'm past being able to think clearly it's so late.

One was to stop DOJ from doxing out the many FBI agents who worked on any case involving the January 6th insurrection.

Whom Trump wants to fire, and probably will.

There's a suit about the civil servant resignation thing.

At least one. Maybe more.

These are all in federal court seeking injunctions.

Cerberus

Maybe some will stick.

tchrist

They just got a third one about not paying grants and such.

Cerberus

It is out of our hands.

tchrist

01:53

Not a third court case, a third injunction.

Yes.

Thing is, these injunctions have no power.

No court ruling can ever have power with Trump or his minions.

It's not like Trump's justice department will prosecute anyone for disobeying a court order that they don't like.

And the courts themselves have only the U.S. Marshal Service. There's only so many of them and so much that they can do.

Cerberus

Not even if the Supreme Court orders it?

tchrist

Correct.

Cerberus

Or parliament?

tchrist

The executive is suppose to deploy whatever it takes to make people comply with the Supreme Court.

Up to and including active duty military.

And that has historically happened.

It will no longer happen here if the Supreme Court rules against anything Trump doesn't want to go along with.

Cerberus

Ignoring court orders would be a new step.

tchrist

01:57

Yes.

Congress has the power to make laws and allocate funds.

And to revoke both.

But no power to actually mete out justice.

They, too, have no enforcement ability.

Only the executive branch has the sword.

Trumps defies court orders whenever he can however he can.

He says one thing and does another.

Cerberus

What if the Supreme Court directly ordered the police to arrest someone?

Or if they ordered the army?

tchrist

Oh they cannot do that.

They're a court.

Not in the chain of command.

New York Times finally picked up the Gaza debacle.

Cerberus

They could just call up the chief of some police force.

tchrist

And do what?

Again, that's not the way court orders are implemented.

Cerberus

They could ignore normal procedure.

The highest justice could just pick up the phone and send a commanding letter.

What would happen?

tchrist

02:05

I want to go to sleep for five years.

Cerberus

Yeah.

Usually new governments are the most energetic in the beginning.

Then slow down and fall into a rut.

tchrist

There's never been anything like this. Ever. Ever.

They're simply doing anything and everything they want, all at once, overcoming any ability to stand up to anything. They do NOT care about laws. Trump is immune and there is nothing they can do which he cannot pardon.

Cerberus

Yeah, it's bad.

Parliament could get rid of him if enough Republicans decided he went too far.

tchrist

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH

Never. None will ever do that.

Cerberus

Unlikely, for the time being.

tchrist

02:08

Because none HAVE ever done that.

There are no more with any character to stand up to him. They are all his now.

If he goes down, they go down.

So they won't lift a finger.

Cerberus

But if he does things much worse than anyone has ever done before, who knows.

tchrist

What do you mean, "if"?

That's already happening. It keeps happening daily.

Cerberus

Not just anything, but certain things.

Oh, well, we can't change the situation.

Wait and see.

tchrist

We can change only ourselves. By sleeping. Which we should do.

Cerberus

Wise.

alphabet

02:25

@Cerberus Trump could just appoint extra justices to the Court to decide in his favor, if the Senate Republicans accept it.

@Cerberus Andrew Johnson pardoned nearly everyone who fought against the US Army in the Civil War, as I recall, and they couldn't impeach him.

Cerberus

@alphabet That's a big if.

@alphabet Couldn't or wouldn't?

alphabet

@Cerberus Well, wouldn't. It failed by one vote. Granted, the real charge against him wasn't even about the Confederacy thing; it was about him outright refusing to follow a law Congress had passed.

The one good thing I can say about Trump is that he might be, say, only the second or third worst President in history.

Well, so far. If he starts a Civil War then he'll be the worst.

Cerberus

Much depends on the people around him.

MetaEd

Wordle 1,326 3/6

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“Elf-centered”
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Connections
Puzzle #604
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alphabet

@Cerberus Fortunately those people are all completely reasonable /s

Cerberus

02:41

But a serious analysis?

alphabet

Who better to run the government than a car salesman with conspiracy theories and a guy who writes for neo-Nazi publications?

CowperKettle

03:00

The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mk4

►

A cartoon that was in production since the 1960s to the 1990s and is still unfinished.

> It is the final film for several actors and artists, including animators Ken Harris (died 1982), Errol Le Cain (died 1989), Emery Hawkins (died 1989), Grim Natwick (died 1990), and Art Babbitt (died 1992), and actors Felix Aylmer (died 1979), Eddie Byrne (died 1981), Clinton Sundberg (died 1987), Kenneth Williams (died 1988), Sir Anthony Quayle (died 1989), and Vincent Price (died 1993, one month after the film's initial release).

alphabet

03:14

Good news is, maybe I can sell RFK Jr. on my all-milk diet

CowperKettle

> How (and why) languages became more complex as we evolved more prosocial: the human self-domestication view frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/…

I have a weird feeling in my brain and slight numbness in the left hand, left side of the lips and left leg, but it's futile to go to a "neurologist" with this.

Especially since it comes (like now) after overeating.

Doctors will just dismiss any symptoms they can't understand.

alphabet

03:39

> The United States Postal Service announced Tuesday that it had temporarily stopped accepting packages from China and Hong Kong, hours after an order by President Trump took effect that ended duty-free handling of many of these parcels.

CowperKettle

@alphabet Too bad.

I've just received a package from China

A new bicycle helmet with magnet-attached visors.

alphabet

> Mr. Trump has contended that allowing so many packages into the United States with little or no inspection has created a conduit for fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, and related supplies to enter the United States.

CowperKettle

A Rockbros helmet.

alphabet

Can't have China stealing all our fentanyl manufacturing jobs

@CowperKettle Everything is from China. I'm pretty sure I was made in China somehow.

Remember how, before they passed a law about it, the federal government was importing 99.5% of American flags from China?

CowperKettle

03:54

M.A.R.

> So God saw in Saul (Paul) a scholarly ability and a pure sincerity. But he needed a course correction. And nothing but a dramatic supernatural conversion event would ever cause Saul to change his mind, forsake the Pharisee's erroneous teaching, and expel the murderous tendency to persecute Christians.

Well if I ever experience a supernatural event I would probably just assume it's some yet unexplained phenomenon.

So maybe I'm just destined to be a skeptic till the end.

Cerberus

And right.

M.A.R.

Weird combination that, murder and sincerity

It's like if in a game you don't even steal food items dropped on the tables and on market stalls but you kill anyone that pisses you off

There should be an achievement for that, come to think of it.

"Saint Paul"?

Cerberus

04:10

Ugh, the desert religions...

Connections
Puzzle #605
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alphabet

@M.A.R. Aw, c'mon, the image of the Virgin Mary appearing on a piece of grilled cheese didn't convince you?

M.A.R.

Certainly isn't a saintly picture, not caring much about killing and probably torturing other people but your world being upended if you figure out you're teaching the wrong book

@Cerberus to be fair savanah and steppe religions aren't much better, they just dress prettier for their rituals

Cerberus

I don't know, their texts seem less crazy, if they even have any.

CowperKettle

I hope it won't get foggy in cold weather.

If it does, it's 3600 rubles wasted, and I would only wear it in warm weather.

alphabet

04:49

Just found the Christianity SE answer that was from. Ugh.

Robusto

05:05

@CowperKettle The visor looks to be far enough away from your face. Do you wear glasses, and do they get fogged in freezing weather?

Rockbros is a good brand for cycling gear.

I use their knee warmers and a few other wearables.

> Some presidents spend their first few weeks in office trying to make good on their central campaign promise; Donald Trump has instead done everything he can to avoid having to follow through on his. A controversial campaign pledge to enact big, universal tariffs that would transform the global-trade system and usher in American prosperity has been whittled down to a set of hollow threats designed to extract mostly symbolic concessions from America’s neighbors.
Trump is behaving like a man who has lost the appetite for aggressive tariffs—if he ever had it in the first place.

alphabet

@Robusto No tariffs?! I demand that me make my groceries more expensive!

Robusto

@alphabet I hear he responds to flattery. You could try that.

alphabet

05:23

(Ack, that "me" was a typo for "he")

@Robusto Trump backs down on China tariffs after Xi Jinping calls him "very handsome and intelligent"

CowperKettle

07:46

@Robusto Yes, I wear glasses, and they get fogged when I enter a warm store from the cold

They have such complicated lenses, people get dizzy when they try them on.

@Robusto Yes. I have their bicycle alarm, and once bought a helmet to give as a gift

CowperKettle

08:05

Mushroom of the day: oyster mushroom (contains lovastatin)

Xanne

08:30

Expression of the day: “That’s very gangster.” Apparently this means audacious. I just heard this for the first time.

handan_toddler

Pronounced "gangsta" :)

HippoSawrUs

I just learned what lean (drug) is. It dates back to the '60s; who knew.

I really just wanted to see lean lean.

Xanne

Not fearful of negative responses. Gangster used as an adjective.

HippoSawrUs

Evidently, too much lean makes you lean.

handan_toddler

Lean mean fighting machine.

HippoSawrUs

08:35

Codeine; I get it, but doesn't other drugs…

Xanne

Rabbit is a lean meat. Those who eat it exclusively die from getting no fat.

handan_toddler

The brain needs fat.

Xanne

But, rabbit and avacado, that might work.

HippoSawrUs

Wow, that's what hogs are for…damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Xanne

@handan_toddler How do you know that? You have heard this before?

handan_toddler

08:38

Yup.

Street talk.

Xanne

In what context,

Where and when?

Street talk?

HippoSawrUs

Our pediatrician, long ago, said kids need whole milk until age 4 for brain development.

handan_toddler

African Americans living in cities.

Xanne

Ahh, fat.

HippoSawrUs

Was he right? I dunno, but he scared us into it.

handan_toddler

08:41

Fact: 60% of the brain is fat.

Xanne

@handan_toddler Starting how long ago?

handan_toddler

90s

I think it started in LA.

HippoSawrUs

There was a Hawaiian toddler on our ward who drank 2% milk all day from a bottle like a beast.

Everybody was literally afraid to take it from him.

I bundled him in a thermal blanket once and he went to sleep without it.

Otherwise, he would've slapped me in the face.

handan_toddler

Etymology of "gangsta"
The word "gangsta" was first recorded in 1985–90.
The word "gangsta" is a variant of the word "gangster" and is a type of AAVE pronunciation.

HippoSawrUs

That was the most gangster baby ever

Probably really a Hawaiian beast though

They had to cut the milk to 2% because he was becoming a jelly roll

handan_toddler

08:48

> rap style generally credited to West Philly hip hop artist Schoolly D, but as for the word itself, his "Gangster Boogie" (1984) used the conventional spelling; NWA was spelling it gangsta by 1988.

Xanne

@handan_toddler Wow, thanks very much.

HippoSawrUs

He probably had an underlying condition

handan_toddler

np

And then came "The Gang Star"

The alpha of the alpha males.

Xanne

Trump and his first two weeks were described as “very gangster” on a TV talk show tonight. So, full circle.

handan_toddler

09:06

But the younger generation, unfortunately doesn't see the fullness of the circle.

HippoSawrUs

09:20

I got 4 out of 5 in place (#2–#5) on the 2nd try of Wordle.

I think I'm too lucky+smart for that game.

Like a winning combo of lucky+smart

Not too lucky or too smart individually

Or for anything else

It's just really specific

Like God wanted me to have instant gratification but no real honed skills every day

I'm killin' it

I wait for the first word to come to me

From God probably

IDK but it seems right at the time

What is one word for a winning combo that is not winning separately?

JK, I'm not a jerk or anything

There should be a phrase for that though

As nearly everything else in life

Mystically ordained

Every day

CowperKettle

Ayenbite of Inwyt

The Ayenbite of Inwyt —also Aȝenbite (Agenbite) of Inwit; literally, the "again-biting of inner wit," or the Remorse (Prick) of Conscience is the title of a confessional prose work written in a Kentish dialect of Middle English. Rendered from the French original, one supposes by a "very incompetent translator," it is generally considered more valuable as a record of Kentish pronunciation in the mid-14th century than exalted as a work of literature. == Origins and content == The Ayenbite is a translation of the French Somme le Roi (also known as the Book of Vices and Virtues), a late 13th century...

A prick of conscience.

"Again-biting of inner wit"

GratefulDisciple

13:51

@Cerberus Just out of curiosity, what type of religion is the ancient Greek and Roman religion called, the ones that build temples across the Mediterranean?

Robusto

#travle #784 +0 (Perfect)
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https://travle.earth

GratefulDisciple

@M.A.R. To be fair, following the account in Acts, there are 3rd party and empirical elements that have to be explained: 1) clear words out of the blue that is contextual, 2) sudden blindness for 3 days, 3) a second person (Ananias) received complementary revelation to meet him at a specific street in Damascus, and healed him of blindness

So it's not your run-of-the-mill subjective individual "supernatural" experience that in the past century we hear a lot from Charismatics (I tend to categorize most of them as psychosomatic). And it took him at least 3 years to process it before launching his ministry.

So I think it's a different category than what we hear a lot from Christian Charismatics, which I tend to categorize most of their experience as 1) psychosomatic, 2) seeing what you want to see in a Rorschach test, or 3) confirmation bias, although just like placebo effect they DO get better. It's all in how they process it but they tend to move on from the experience itself (unlike Paul which for him is a commissioning call).

Robusto

14:12

#WhenTaken #344 (05.02.2025)

I scored 822/1000🏅

1️⃣📍14.7 km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥇196/200
2️⃣📍373 km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥇185/200
3️⃣📍14.4K km - 🗓️6 yrs - 🥉93/200
4️⃣📍1.3K km - 🗓️10 yrs - 🥈149/200
5️⃣📍11.6 m - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,327 4/6

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CowperKettle

@GratefulDisciple Polytheism

Ancient Greek religion

Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been questioned as anachronistic. The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. Likewise, no Greek writer known to us classifies either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. Instead, for example, Herodotus speaks of the Hellenes as having "common shrines of the gods and sacrifices, and the same kinds of customs...

> .. philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to assume a single transcendent deity

alphabet

14:42

@Xanne I think of that use of gangster--as an adjective, pronounced with the /r/ at the end--as a reasonably common slang term even among White people.

GratefulDisciple

@CowperKettle Yes, but aren't desert religions and steppe religions are polytheistic too? I was looking for a more specific word. And there is also mystery religions while Stoicism / Pythagorean religions are more philosophical / mystical.

The Wiki article helps though, thanks. That's a good starting point.

Robusto

Daily Octordle #1108
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CowperKettle

@GratefulDisciple Probably all ancient religions are more or less common: a lot of different gods who have a lot of different relationships with each other, like in a sitcom

tchrist

It's such a shame that our nation is now being ruled by a triumvirate comprising Musk, Miller, and Trump. I for one much preferred the status quo ante living in a nation ruled by actual laws instead of by this new hellish three-headed emperor. Heads will roll, mark my words.

CowperKettle

Robusto

14:58

The REAL Waste That DOGE Should Cut

►

tchrist

> In order to bypass constitutional obstacles and force through the political goals of the three men, they forged an alliance in secret where they promised to use their respective influence to support each other.

Musk has Crassus's gold.

Trump probably thinks he's Caesar not Pompey, though.

Cerberus

@tchrist The first Triumvirate was ended by the senate.

tchrist

If only ours would be!

Cerberus

The American republic is a lot stronger than the Roman was.

Robusto

It's a slippery slope, though.

> Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican torn between his concerns as a doctor and supporting President Trump, cast the deciding vote to send Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as health secretary to the full Senate.

This senate does the will of Caesar.

tchrist

15:04

Correct.

Robusto

The Hippocratic Oath becomes the hypocritic obeisance.

tchrist

Under Julius Caesar the Senate indeed retained some nominal power. Octavius fixed that in practice if not in name when he roped together the shattered shards of the old republic into a new empire.

Cerberus

Under Caesar, the senate had almost zero power to act against him.

tchrist

As Dictator, this is true.

That's the "dictator" role.

Cerberus

Even before that.

He crossed the Rubico with his army.

tchrist

15:09

He certainly pulled a lot of tricks.

Cerberus

It is like Trump's marching on the American parliament with a large army loyal only to him.

And publicly commanding parliament to obey him.

tchrist

Do you mean that the senate lacked the legal power, or only that they were unable to back any decrees with sufficient force of arms to challenge Caesar?

Cerberus

Mainly the latter.

But there had been a history of other Roman generals doing similar things, like Sulla.

tchrist

There had.

Cerberus

Caesar didn't come out of nothing, it was a longer development.

But I must go now.

tchrist

15:12

No question that that is so.

As must I.

Cerberus

Vale.

alphabet

@CowperKettle Greco-Roman philosophy was generally monotheistic or henotheistic (the main exception being the Epicureans, who were never the most popular school).

The religion actually practiced by ordinary people was polytheistic, of course, with quite a lot of pluralism and syncretism.

It's hard to say what exactly your typical Roman on the street thought about the nature of the gods. But it's quite possible to have a belief system that combines polytheistic and monotheistic elements, as many schools of modern Hinduism do.

alphabet

15:46

(It's often assumed that Christianity's main competitor was polytheism. That may have been true among ordinary converts. Among the educated classes, though, it was mainly opposed by other philosophical and/or religious systems that, though not monotheistic in quite the way Christianity was, were also not polytheistic in the way most people would interpret that word.)

jlliagre

#WhenTaken #344 (05.02.2025)

I scored 878/1000🏆

1️⃣📍99.5 km - 🗓️11 yrs - 🥇177/200
2️⃣📍1.9K km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥈147/200
3️⃣📍344 km - 🗓️7 yrs - 🥇180/200
4️⃣📍433 km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥈174/200
5️⃣📍6.7 m - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,327 3/6

🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Octordle #1108
🕐🕛
🕚🔟
4️⃣9️⃣
5️⃣7️⃣
Score: 71

Daily Sequence Octordle #1108
5️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🕚
🕛🕐
Score: 71

GratefulDisciple

18:17

@alphabet What's very interesting to me is as Christianity enters new Eastern cultures is how it has to adapt with new competitors. Dealing with Korean shamanism, Japanese Shintoism, Javanese Kejawen, and Chinese Confucianism are very different than dealing with its first competitors: ancient Greek/Roman paganism in the 4th century and Persian Zoroastrianism, as well as the later religions that various barbarian nations brought with them when they conquered Roman territories.

@alphabet Syncretism IS the main issue today as well as in the past. Even in America today, there's a syncretism between original New Testament Christianity with American nationalism, the syncretism (that I disavow) powering TCG followers.

@alphabet I have heard Hinduism has great capacity to devour newer religions, such as (for Christianity) they don't have issue with the deity of Jesus but assimilate it (Borg-style) to become just one of their thousands of deities. So Hinduism will probably stay for centuries more.

Vikas

> Netanyahu Praises Trump At White House Event: ’You Are The Greatest Friend Israel Has Ever Had’

Cerberus

18:39

Hey, has the typeface of this room changed??

Or is it my browser/brain?

jlliagre

19:30

I don't know. I'm less sensitive to typefaces than others though.

Daily Extreme Octordle #1108
🕚🕛
9️⃣🔟
4️⃣🟥
5️⃣6️⃣
Score: 70

Connections
Puzzle #605
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟦🟦🟩
🟪🟦🟪🟩
🟩🟪🟪🟩
🟩🟩🟪🟩

jlliagre

19:50

Tightrope, a daily trivia game | Britannica

Feb. 5, 2025

T I G H T R O P E
✅ ✅ ✅ 💔 ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ 🎉

My Score: 1860

Robusto

@Cerberus ^

That's what I see.

jlliagre

20:48

@Robusto @Cerberus So do I.

CowperKettle

21:51

Samuel Leech

Samuel Leech (c. 1798–1848) was a young sailor in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy during the War of 1812. He became notable as one of very few who wrote an account of his experiences, titled, in the manner of the time, Thirty Years from Home, or a Voice from the Main Deck; Being the Experience of Samuel Leech, Who Was Six Years in the British and American Navies: Was Captured in the British Frigate Macedonian: Afterwards Entered the American Navy, and Was Taken in the United States Brig Syren, by the British Ship Medway. Leech's nautical career began in 1810, at the age of twelve, when...