Cards on the table: as an atheist, a big part of my drive towards self-improvement is my daily effort to be the kind of person my dog clearly believes me to be.

Yes, it's been nice to ditch commuting in packed trains, but if we're being honest, the biggest advantage of working from home while the kids are at school has been the effect on couples sex lives.

The dawning realization that as a gen X who cycles several times a week, I'm only a pot belly and some lycra away from meeting the conditions for a very common stereotype. I think I'll see if I can stick the landing on aging hippy instead.

Our regular Friday night edibles-and-bad-movies session caused us to watch Left Behind last night.
I've not laughed as much in months.

Just spotted on LinkedIn that someone I was at university with has posted their role as Principle rather than Principal.

It's been over a quarter century since we said anything to each other.

Am I a bigger asshole if I reach out to tell him or if I don't?

❤️

Why does this exercise me so? It brought to mind the interview Will Smith gave a couple of years back, in which he told the audience that he hopes that the voters would now reflect on the destructive aspects of “loveless, godless leadership”. As if godlessness were a pejorative term. Not even ungodly. Godless. In other words, being of the mind that God likely doesn’t exist is seen as an inferior moral position than believing he does exist but that you’re against him.

So much of our political discourse is distorted by this American obsession with God. Democrats and Republicans both invoke God when attempting to appeal to unity. They often go further, each framing their criticisms of the other in terms of how ungodly their opposing party is, and how much more in-line with God they are. So much time is wasted. So much political nuance is lost. Our politics are mentally enfeebled by it, like a WWE event gatecrashing a book reading on Western philosophy.

Just realized that I've been wincing solidly for 10 minutes while listening to the news. My face hurts from this bullshit.

Yikes. A sobering warning for those making difficult end of life decisions for our loved ones.

https://onlysky.media/emakoff/the-last-words-he-heard/

This is so on-point.
https://youtu.be/6b-0dA8eBrw

First time out on the water with a smaller 7sq m rig. The boat still screams along.
I love sailing at Alameda.

How many of us with poor browser-tab-closing discipline spend a little bit of each day playing a game I call "what just went bong"?

Here's your regular reminder that faith is neither a virtue, nor a path to the truth.
https://onlysky.media/hemant-mehta/christian-hate-preacher-calls-for-the-execution-of-every-single-homosexual/

I am absolutely loving The Pentaverate on Netflix. I've really missed Mike Myers.

News about ITER and other scientific advances seem to be the only bits of news that bring me a sense of hope for a better tomorrow.

Exactly where does this radicalized garden gnome get off? Why wouldn't you let atheists escape?
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2022/05/15/Kadyrov-asks-Erdogan-not-to-evacuate-murderers-atheists-at-Azovstal-plant