My Gators may have read a few too many headlines this week. Looking rough.

The offense (before today) has glossed over the fact that this defense is honestly not very good.

I think this says as much about the Americans willing to start going to a new church as it does anything else. What’s growing are suburban prosperity gospel nonsense churches with varying degrees of Christian Nationalist subtexts: strip mall churches on the one end, repurposed sports arena hyperchurches on the other. These tell white people in largely white areas that the lifestyle they already live, right down to the fact that they feel most comfortable driving to a pre-fab concrete box, is holy. They get to feel they are safely members of a strong community, and donating to their pastor and the GOP will keep the heathens who would take that from them at bay. The churches understand that people don’t inherently want to throw money into a hole, so they offer a combination of services (including simple socializing with “friends”) and threats, but they meticulously avoid anything boring or asking people to consider open-ended questions without simple answers. As committed evangelicals, they are also always selling this package.

What’s dying are the mainline Protestant churches who made the mistake of taking separation of church and state seriously and trying to earnestly engage with their faith. You’ll find many of them, even if they’re quite socially conservative, are much less sure that they know what their god intends for LGBTQIA+ and nonbelievers, and even if parishioners personally are sure, they will say that kindness and setting a Christ-like example is the best policy because that is the tack their church takes. On the one hand, people of goodwill take from this that they don’t need organized religion in their lives even if they’re still Christian in some meaningful way, and they’ll just show up on Easter or when they have personal spiritual crises. On the other hand, the aggressive culture warriors find it all to be unsatisfying because they want to be told not just what to believe, but that what they already believe is correct and should invoke a literally divine level of privilege.

While my sympathy for any given individual on death row is limited, it just feels yucky to be down in the mud lingering on how much someone who’s already in prison needs to get MORE punishment and die at our collective hands. Individuals feel what they feel, but it rots the soul of a community to fetishize revenge like that, even more so to profess some sort of satisfaction that it’s as painful as possible.

It’s a bit of a mouthful to say you’re from “Texasbutdonaldtrumpcanfuckhimself”, but generally worthwhile, LOL. At least they’ll get to learn that brisket with a salt and pepper rub and sauce on the side is the proper way to do barbecue.

If it’s not a strain on your or your family’s resources, then 100% go. Your degree will still be from your American school, and you’ll get credits. The experience will make up for any issues you have with education (unlikely anyway, especially with the way Abbott and company are ruining the public universities in Texas), both for your resume and your actual development as a person. Travel broadens your horizons and exposes you to different ways of living, even if only slightly. Hell, the “slightly” is in some ways one of the most important parts, because it really reiterates that people are people and they’re just trying to live.

I did a three week summer program in Brussels twenty years ago, and even that was an incredible learning experience. There’s something about having to get into a routine in another culture that makes it so much more impactful than tourism.

citizenship by naturalization can be revoked

Theoretically this can only be done if it’s proven the naturalized citizen lied on their application. So probably still applies to Elon.

I’ve actually been watching more NFL due to the more traditional and fan-friendly structure and presentation (we are officially in crazypants world now). I’m still paying attention to my CFB teams and to one or two big games each week, but nothing is appointment viewing anymore, and especially during the first half of the season when I have no idea WTF players I’m watching, it doesn’t take much to get me distracted and doing something else.

I can’t morally fault the players for getting the bag and pushing back on antiquated rules, but hoo-buddy, as a “thing I want to watch” college football is in a bad place.

lol @ “Children McNuggets”

Mine was made for a chemical analyzer for medical and drug testing (it has a METH key, among others!), and firmware-wise the customization was sort of a hack. Keeping numlock on was necessary to make it work how they intended.

1. You win, I think. That definitely seems to be an accepted spelling.
2. Pretty sure this particular keyboard is gonna be only caps. One of my keyboards even does this with numlock. It is on by defualt, has no numlock key, and if I plug in a second or use software to turn it off, the keyboard turns it back on like a useless machine.

cuckoo

Florida: Better than in a long time.

TCU: Worse than in a long time.

And both are important, or you start taking Caesar or Plutarch, worse, the Historia Augusta at face value.

Jags are kicking ass because they’re finally wearing the right uniforms.

Fair. The drowned god knows that what is dead can never die.

So are the Schooners fully dead again?

But also, those war.gov (JFC y’all) commercials can fuck right off.

Gators looking about as good as possible. There’s gonna be some games where teams contain the run and score on this slightly sus defense, but Billy didn’t leave the cupboard bare, and Sumrall is maybe actually a good gameday coach.

because money.

Gotta say, I was hoping the Gators snagged Kiffin when it first seemed possible, but thank God for whatever booster put the kibosh on that. We’re going to lose some games this year, but I haven’t been this optimistic in a while.