I can’t see the video without an account, but the house in the thumbnail looks really good.

For DnD, my orcs all lived in a Tabletop Scenics Orc Barracks, but now I’m very tempted to try something like this for next time.

I’m more of a coin return man myself

It’s a ridiculous take that the political minutiae of the US is largely meaningless to people outside the US?

Look, it’s enough for me to know that the USA has made a thinly veiled threat about forcibly taking over Greenland. This is of immediate concern to me.

I don’t need to know the details of what the American version of Göring said in defence of the American version of the Gestapo this week.

We have our own domestic nonsense that I’m sure you don’t get inundated with - why would it be so ridiculous for us not to want to get bombarded with yours?

Well, the Greenland thing is certainly barely legal…

From an outsider’s perspective, I think the USA and Russia should just have sex and get it over with.

We get it - you both love the military, you both hate minorities, you both want to restrict the rights and freedoms of your citizens.

Just get a room, get it out of your systems, and maybe the rest of the world can finally get some much-needed peace this year.

I think the biggest issue is that you’ve assumed everyone is the same and wants to be treated the same.

The world isn’t black and white. People are telling you their personal preferences and you’re telling them that they’re wrong.

You’re fighting other people’s battles for them even when they’re telling you that they’d prefer you not to - you’re literally acting like the guy in the last panel.

If there’s anything that we’ve learned over the last horrible year it’s that getting all of your information off social media is a recipe for disaster.

It’s a Christian tradition - four candles, one for each Sunday before Christmas. There’s often an extra one in the centre for Christmas day too.

Every week an extra candle is lit. Today, using the conventional method, three candles would be lit.

I focussed on the obesity statistics because that is what you were talking about.

OK, let’s flip this.

According to you, people with no money are not only buying junk food, but buying it in quantities to become overweight and obese.

People with no money are buying large quantities of food.

Is that what you’re claiming? Is that how the world works in your head?

I’m saying that people with no money have no money to buy food. You’re saying that people with no money somehow also have enough money to buy large quantities of unhealthy food.

At this point I can only assume that you’re just arguing bad faith, because there isn’t anything complicated to understand here.

How are you not getting it?

You’re right in claiming there is a link between obesity and poverty. However the difference in obesity rates between the upper quintile and lower quintile is still less than 10%.

Obesity is a problem across every single wealth bracket.

There is a problematically high number of people in America who are both poor and obese. But there are about twice as many people in poverty who are not obese.

Of course, and it’s a common trend around the developed world.

What’s important to realise, though is that there are huge swathes of people who are poorer than that. People who need to choose between eating and heating. People who go without just so their kids can eat.

The obese poor people are not the ones who are starving (obviously). They’re not the ones in abject poverty.

Let them eat cake?

Believe it or not, there are other countries than the US on the internet.

Also (and I suspect an even more difficult concept to grasp) even within the US there are people with barely enough money to eat anything, let alone junk food.

Look at the data - 47 million people in the US face food insecurity. Do you think these people are trapsing down to the food bank only when they fancy a change from McDonald’s?

It’s good to be sceptical when you hear stuff that surprises you, but do a bit of research before dismissing it.

Is your toothbrush enchanted by a penguin’s suitcase?

Ellen - before she was a talk-show host, Ellen DeGeneres played the main character in an Emmy award-winning sitcom. The show had LGBT characters, with Ellen herself (both the character and actress) coming out later in the show’s run.

I’m surprised I’ve not seen Will & Grace mentioned (I’m sure it must be here, but I didn’t notice it). That show famously featured many LGBT characters, including a lesbian couple who were Will and Grace’s main rivals.

Less specifically for lesbian characters, but featuring a gay couple as main characters, you’ve also got The New Normal, a fantastic show about a gay couple that was cancelled after one season, and, of course Modern Family.

I wouldn’t say that this programme was good, but Brookside famously featured the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss on British TV (the watershed is the point, 9pm, where it’s assumed that children will no longer be watching TV). This was in 1994, when we still had backwards Conservative Party laws about it being illegal to “promote public discussion” of homosexuality. For context, it’s worth noting that even two years later, when Carol and Susan got married in Friends they didn’t kiss.

I’m sorry it came to this, but this is clearly the behaviour of a deviant. Expect a visit from officers who will escort you to an undisclosed location for reprogramming.

What’s your opinion on lengthening the word “no”?

I’m against it in all circumstances. Nothing ruins a dramatic moment in a comic than a character shouting “nooo!” - in my head it always rhymes with “moo”.

Thanks for replying to this. This is everything I would have said, except in a far less exasperated way than I would have said it!

I’m going to draw a line under it now though. I honestly don’t have energy to explain why a street-preacher who was active for a only a few years does not have the same quality of historical evidence as Cleopatra.

They’re either stupid or a troll. A quick look through their profile shows a lot of posts in Danish, so I don’t think they’re stupid. Scandinavia, however, is famously home to trolls of all shapes and sizes.

Well, I’m certainly glad that I wrote out all that, for you just to reply to the first paragraph!

Anyway, you’re wrong. Literally minimum effort required to dig these out, but I’ll do it for you anyway.

Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus

Annals by Tacitus

Antiquities has two mentions, along with a rather grim description of what Nero was doing to Christians. Annals has one mention.

And I think you’re fundamentaly mistaken about what the Bible is. It’s just a collection of works. The Old Testament is pretty much the same stuff as the Jewish Tanakh, and predates Jesus fairly significantly. The New Testament is composed of works created after Jesus’s death. This includes several letters by a guy named Paul.

“OK, and…”, I hear you say.

He was absolutely a contemporary of the historical Jesus, carried out missionary work after his conversion.

I’ll grant that there are no first-hand accounts - even Paul’s accounts were second-hand from people who actually knew Jesus. But it doesn’t mean anything - there are few first-hand accounts of anybody from before the early middle ages, let alone a commoner born 2000 years ago.

Sorry - you’re wrong in this.

There are non-Biblical contemporary accounts of a historical Jesus of Nazareth, the travelling preacher who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. It’s generally accepted that he was a real person.

As for the magical side things attributed to him - the immaculate conception, the miracles etc - well, that is a matter of faith.

To use another historical figure, look at William Wallace. There is contemporary evidence that he was a real person, but we don’t have much at all. Most of what we have is works created long after he died - legends and stories that have fashioned him into the person we think of. He was a real person, but Braveheart isn’t a true story.

If you want another example of how distorted things can get over time - just look at the current “American” version of Jesus.

The Biblical Jesus was a Jew who said people should look after the poor, love our neighbours, respect cultural differences, and that nothing God has made is unclean. He said pursuit of money is the root of all evil and, angered by the commercialisation of the temple, flipped over the tables of the money-changers.

The American Jesus is a white Christian who hates foreigners and their ways, hates gay people and hates atheists. Conversely, he loves billionaires, mega-churches and capitalism.

Historical Jesus is probably real, but that doesn’t mean the Bible is an accurate account.

Is that Lindisfarne?!

I used to read this when it just started, back on AOL dial-up. Wow - I’m both super happy that it’s still going, and a little sad that it hasn’t become bigger. It was a really nicely fleshed-out world.

Is The System Quietly Phasing You Out?

The Functional Melancholic

There. Literally the minimum you needed to provide.

Pop this in your initial post, and people can make an informed decision.