2236 EMeffed.

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I had to go back and read how this actually played out myself because I couldn’t exactly recall how Reggie ended up in the situation either. It seemed fun and natural as I reread it so that was good. Very much the kind of situation I would have trouble figuring out in retrospect. XD

If you don’t want to read anything about the US elections just stop right here. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d just like to get lost in the world of the comic. So, fair warning.

It’s election night, so I don’t expect people are going to be paying attention. For the historical record It’s the Trump/Biden election. Hopefully those names will never be used in the context of any election ever again. At the time of posting nobody is sure who will win. I’m going to guess Trump. I guess we can see if my guess was right on Friday. I certainly wouldn’t put money on it, that’s just my gut feeling.

45 Comments

Getting fixated on code violations is probably the purest way I’ve heard Reggie’s character expressed. It doesn’t encompass everything about him, but man, it encompasses so much.

“I had no idea how to use it for magic”

…This somehow pains me. I have to wonder what Reggie’s reaction would have been if he had actually found an electromagnetic field in the middle of the room, floating in the air.

Well, since the entire known universe contains an e.m. field, Reggie wouldn’t have been at all surprised. I suspect you were curious about if he got an inexplicably strong signal in tge middle of the room. Given his attitude and approach, my guess is he would utter the classic scientific alert, “Huh, that’s weird!” After, as he did with the reveal of the hidden room, he would then likely have tried to triangulate and-or trace the increasing signal strength to the source.

Also, since the comic hasn’t gone full paranormal (only paranormal-adjacent at best) I would’ve be surprised if Jackie had done that too Reggie. No doubt Reggie would have been astounded, and likely to pursue further experiments to explain the phenomenon.

I am curious why does it pain you that a skeptic wouldn’t know how to use a measurement device for magic on a ghost hunt?

To me Reggie doesn’t come off as a skeptic but someone who flat out does not believe in ghosts. Skeptics are at least open minded about the paranormal and will try to either prove of disprove it. Reggie, with his use of the phrase “magic”, shows that he doesn’t believe in even the slight possibility that there might be something there.

If you want good examples of paranormal shows where the investigators go in as skeptics, watch “Ghost Hunters”, “Ghost Nation”, and/or “Ghost Adventures”. They actually try to debunk more than prove paranormal activity on those shows.

A bad paranormal show would have been “Paranormal State”. The main investigator on that show was overly religious and deemed every spirit encountered as “evil”. And unlike the three aforementioned shows, “Paranormal State” had a LOT of controversy, what with taking advantage of clients and faking evidence.

I doubt that you have a correct understanding of skepticism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism

I’m moderately sure your description of a skeptic is counter to how most skeptics see themselves. The core of being a skeptic is being *doubtful* about a claim, not *supportive* of a claim. It doesn’t even carry the burden of working to disprove a claim, or entertaining a claim without proof. Even more-so, it is not skeptics’ burden to try and prove a claim true. A skeptics default position is to leave the burden of proof with the claimant. While skepticism and atheism are not the same, there is a lot of overlap in adherents to each philosophy. (Arguably skepticism of religion is the path to atheism). To use Dawkin’s scale (-7 unflappable doubt:0 agnosticism{ish[1]}:+7 absolute faith), few atheists(-7) would persist in refuting the existence of all gods when provided with evidence that even one does. Most (-6 to -1) would be astounded or pleasantly surprised to see evidence of such a thing. It is fair to describe them as skeptical of religion and faith. It would not be fair to claim that they do (or should) spend a lot of time worrying that they might be wrong. Nor would it be accurate to say they should be expected to chant “maybe you’re right” to every “amen”. 

Similarly with Reggie. From a truly skeptical perspective, faith, religion, magic, ghosts, ancient aliens, modern UFO visits, abductions, spirits, Gaia, crystal power, numerology, rampant conspiracy postulating, Illuminati, etc, etc, are all equivalent in terms of deserving attention. They all lack sufficient evidence to garner attention. When presented with real, irrefutable evidence on something, that evidence would be compelling. However, after thousands of years of skepticism, still no-one has managed to produce irrefutable proof of pseudo- or religious phenomenon.

On the other side, there have been thousands of years of people making bold yet unsubstantiated claims of various phenomena. And every time, every single time, those claims fall apart under scrutiny. So for a real skeptic (not one who has a vested financial interest in stringing along an audience), it isn’t worth dressing every question up in “maybe this time.”

Reggie’s casual dismissal of ghost hunting as “magic” seems bang-on for a typical skeptic.

It seems to me you are expecting the villagers to forever say “maybe this time” every time the shepherd boy cries “wolf”. While that attitude would garner more support for those seeking to illuminate a phenomenon, by the skeptic it is reasonably perceived as a waste of energy and time.

[1] Agnosticism is arguably orthogonal to the atheism/theism scale, as formal agnosticism is not “it is not known” but rather the stronger statement “it can not be known”.

What actually constitutes proof of the existence of a god? That’s a question that a lot of atheist skeptics have thought about and a lot of people who aren’t atheist skeptics have not thought about.

Actual evidence of a god would need to be something that can’t be explained by natural phenomenons and also can’t be something that people did.

What is a natural phenomenon? It’s something that occurs that isn’t something people caused to happen.

Of course, at this point, many non-skeptics would interject a lot of questions, many of which would be answered by either “that’s proof of aliens” or “we’d look at having to rework a lot of physics to explain that.”

And at this point, just about every atheist skeptic has gotten to that -7 position you mentioned. There’s no evidence that could convince them because any evidence falls into either the artificial or natural buckets. All of the sick and injured people in every hospital suddenly being cured wouldn’t prove that there’s a god, merely that there’s someone or more likely a group of someones who are very powerful and decided to make a statement.

At absolutely no point can one possibly present proof of someone being the creator, because the universe as we know it has already been created and other than witnessing the act, nothing really works.

To be absolutely clear on this: I’m not a skeptic. I’ve just been around enough of them to know that if they’ve really given their position a lot of thought, there’s no convincing them. Not that I’ve really tried. Rather, when we talk religion, they try to convert me, because my agnosticism does not sit well with them at all. It feels like they’d prefer someone believe in a religion with one or more gods.

I mean, you know, it’s entirely possible my religion does have one or more gods. But I’m more or less on the flipside of that atheist skeptic position. Because what I see is that evidence of the lack of a god is at least as hard to come by. It literally cannot exist, because anything that could be evidence of the lack of a god could also be fake evidence planted by a god and we would have no way to tell which.

I would not put my agnosticism in the middle between religions, but I’d also not put it orthogonal to them. Agnosticsm is more the Kwisatz Haderach of religions, sitting comfortably where the religious dare not look: the zero point. We are, however, not about to kill anyone with Muad’Dib. We don’t have a reason to. We’d just like people to stop killing and hurting other people over something that cannot be conclusively proven one way or another.

To be clear, I’m not denying the existence of the -6 to -1 atheist skeptics. I’m just saying there aren’t many of them. Many of the atheist skeptics who say they’re open to proof are still at the -7 point, because while they may be honestly open to it, there’s nothing that would work as that proof. It’s like me saying that I’m open to the evidence of the existence of specific gods or the hard evidence of a lack of any god. I’m a scientist, I’ll take proof, it’s just that there’s literally nothing that I can conceive of that would work.

Reggie’s deadpan narration is funnier to me than if he was trying to be funny or trying to make himself sound like a big deal.

I keep saying it: I’m really enjoying Reggie and I’m hoping one day he will become one of the gang.

Dating to me was a complete mystery. I was very well educated by (Bob Denver) Maynard Crebs, of how it was spurs see to work. And like Reggie, stuff would happen that I couldn’t follow. And I’d suddenly be dating someone, only not who I was planning to ask. It was almost as if the girls had a Powwow and three Boys were allotted to each gal, and she could date anyone of those, in any order, but had to re-negotiate if she wanted a different set. Like trading baseball cards or magic cards, seemed like magic, I guess.
If anyone can explain high school to me, I’d appreciate the insight.

I’m 74 now and I still don’t understand high school. Nor how dating is supposed to work now for me. My marriage of 40 years has been ended by death. I’d like some date-ish social and intellectual interaction, but I’m not ready for a new serious sexual partner. Kind of like high school, I guess, but without a flock of others to meet and greet avery day.

And with coronavirus everything is difficult.

At 53 I’m still wondering the same thing, and how I missed so many really obvious things. And so forth.

And sending some love your way, because it sounds like you can use it.

Sympathy to you both. I’m 39, have had two long term relationship end horribly and each with a kid. So while I had someone good come out of each relationship, the pain and heartache I’m put through in watching my kids suffering and from betrayal has killed any ability to trust a romantic partner. And yes yes, I’m just a baby still, but to be clear: it’s been a decade+ since a sibling last spoke to me (because I accepted help offered by my own good parent), and 3 decades since I had a relationship with my abusive parent. So for my part I’m kinda stuck wondering what’s wrong with me.

You both have a more positive attitude so no doubt that encourages lady luck or cupid or whatever to favour you. Best wishes in your romantic questing.

Well, I was middle-into my 30s when I found out how to make a relationship work. So Having got it right exactly once, am not rocking the boat, nor offering advice about keeping a mate. However, I have seen that love is neither rare, nor difficult, if you are willing to invest. It’s the bravery required to invest that seems the hardest for -me-.

I’ve been witness to those powwows. It may be more of a small town thing. If a girl had previously dated one of your buddies it was considered good manners to check with the friend to make sure he wasn’t looking for a reunion.

This has to be one of the funniest strips you’ve made in a while, Jackie. And that’s saying something. Bravo! <3

If you don’t mind, I myself am trying to rip off the bandaid of the election because that could be cathartic. However, there also seems to be so much racial emotional tension tired up, glued, tarred and feathered, super glued, gold bond adhesive, dental adhesive, rubber cemented, hobby epoxy, the stuff Elwood used on the RV’S gas pedal and elementary school paste adhering it to this election as well.

I’m curious as to how your gut came to that conclusion.

I’ve only seen people who want Trump to win. Except for one Biden sign up the road from here. From where I live all the way to Garden City, Kansas. Nobody likes Biden enough to buy a sign.

There were two choices. Trump, and Not Trump. Nobody was voting FOR Biden. A lot for Harris, probably. Can kind of understand. I voted for Sarah Palin. John McCain just happened to be on the ticket.

I think it’s very easy to have that doubt, but one thing we knew going into last night’s election was that a majority of Republicans said they would show up in person, and a majority of democrats were going to vote with mail-in ballots, so the idea was as more of those ballots were counted, the more blue votes would outpace the red ones.

And it’s paying off, slowly. At this point, with Michigan being declared victorious for Biden with the mail-ins all accounted for, it looks very dire for Trump. Nevada is very much showing blue right now, and with that tendency, it’s likely inevitable.

It may very well be that the 1 Nebraska regional Biden vote will be what is the deciding factor to protect us from immediate fascism. That is, until the GOP gets behind someone who is just better at being modern day Hitler.

I’m being completely serious now:
I have close relatives that were nearly killed by Nazi Germany’s military.

So, if you please, would you tell me more, about your knowledge, about who is really like the real Hitler, and who is really like the real nazis? I would very much like to know.

Read up on how Hitler and the nazi party dismandled the weimar republic. Germany was a republic between WW1 and 1933, where Hitler dismantled the democratic system.

1] You are not Arguas, so kindly note- I wasn’t asking for your opinion. I was asking for theirs. Please consider that idea.

2] Please visit a large synagogue in the U.S., and discuss with the rabbi there, about how you think the US is [being dismantled by a Hitler-like man, and a Hitler-like government]. I’d greatly like to hear how the rabbi reacts to your assessment.

My family survived attacks by Nazi Germany, AND lived through WW2. Some of those relatives are still alive. They were unarmed, + had to hide from, and flee from, the nazis.
Kindly leave it alone.
They didn’t read about the savagery of WW2, in a post-1945 school, history class. They were IN IT. They SURVIVED it.
Kindly leave it alone.

Personally, I think that it might be the cancel culture as well as the “not my president” working their way into putting a political opponent in a brown shirt. And just dropping an equation of President Trump being similar to Hitler, Musiloni, Stalin,PolPot, The Kims, How Chi Minh, Baby Doc is the icing on the hate cake that they might want to present to you for your nutrients edification.

Between crowning ones-self winner, seeking to quash the ballot, and inciting hatred, vs patiently waiting for due process (and encouraging others to wait peacefully), if it’s not obvious to you which is similar I doubt there’s any way to have you consider the other perspective.

I am against tearing down statues and writing off people for making a mistake. There appears to me to be a big difference between, “generally trying to get along for everyone’s benefit” and “bugger off, I got mine.”

“Not my president” applies to small(vocal) parts on both sides (as alternating sub-groups demonstrate that attitude depending on which party has DC).

Cancel Culture also doesn’t apply here, as that mentality should have removed Biden from the running for just a hint of wrongdoing as much as it should have removed Trump. Since they’re both here, it’s evidently not in play. Also, both sides seem to be just fine with cancel culture when it’s working in their favour.

However, there are procedural(ignore the vote), tactical(threat/application of violence) and behavioural(lying/accusing opponent of being the liar in the lie) similarities between the GOP, Trump and various historical autocrats. The most obvious difference, is the level of (dis)organization in the application of the authoritarian state to subdue and execute members of the suppressed minority.

“However, there are procedural(ignore the vote), tactical(threat/application of violence) and behavioural(lying/accusing opponent of being the liar in the lie) similarities between the GOP, Trump and various historical autocrats. The most obvious difference, is the level of (dis)organization in the application of the authoritarian state to subdue and execute members of the suppressed minority.”

Hmm, yeah, like how Hillary and Gore both still claim they were robbed of their elections, and the left spent years trying to destroy Trump’s presidency for absolutely any reason, even invented claims of treason with Russia, and then impeached him for threatening to withhold funds from Ukraine for a few whole days (which Biden also did, and admitted that he did, but that’s okay). Or how Hillary threatened to militarily respond to Russia’s alleged hacking if elected, and how the left took to the streets in mass numbers to destroy property in protest. Not to mention this year how the left has utterly destroyed entire neighborhoods and have brazenly attacked people in the streets, which was fine for them since Democrat politicians openly allowed their Stormtroopers to beat the tar out of innocent people and refused to press charges no matter how obvious their crimes were. Or how Democrats across the country have seized dictatorial power in their states and cities and obliterated local businesses and cancelled civil rights on the flimsiest of an excuse, accusing anyone who disagreed of “Wanting to kill granny”. And calling every single problem with Biden or any leftist “Russian disinformation”, such as former staff members of his accusing him of sexual impropriety because one of them wrote a novel that took place in Russia, and rejecting every report or even just declassification of existing documents as propaganda by the administration. Let’s just throw in how universities, corporate boards, and most media outlets, have just become mouthpieces for the left.

Wait, I’m sorry, it’s the GOP that’s Nazis, I forgot the narrative, mea culpa. Yeah, Trump, that jerk, he…said mean things, absolutely like Hitler! Why, some of his party members have even been openly saying anti-semitic things…wait, no, those were Democrats like Sarsour. My mistake. Again. Don’t know why the pesky evidence keeps getting in the way of my Trump bashing, sorry.

Dude. Trump wouldn’t denounce white supremacy. That’s your guy, his mouth, refusing to say a simple sentence, condemning the likes of QAnon.

I admit, it’s an intricate, strangely beautiful web of bullshit you have sprung up there and who knows, maybe Hillary has been running around trying to defame the presidency: I wouldn’t know, I’ve been a bit distracted by every bullshit, crazy thing your man child has been spraying.

But really, c’mon really. The softest of softballs, calling out literal racists and facism and he wouldn’t do it. How in the name of God can you defend a man like that?

That being said, I do eagerly await your response trying to explain why what Hilary/Biden did that makes that 100 percent ok and defendable.
Toodles!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd0cMmBvqWc

This one’s from Trump’s campaign, on Youtube, but it’s a compilation of him being asked to denounce white supremacy…and doing so.

MULTIPLE TIMES.

At this point, it’s not that he’s refused to denounce white supremacy; it’s not that he’s only done it in small stages; it’s that his opponents refuse to accept it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-condemn-white-supremacists/
Both of y’all are wrong. He didn’t refuse exactly, just danced around it but thats still blowing it out of proportion.
And y’all two are trying to say he isn’t a racist but that’s ignoring a LOT of other shit he’s said.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-racism-comments/588067/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/30/fact-check-12-28-trump-comments-deemed-racist-direct-speech/6062530002/
And of course, his damn twitter feed. I don’t think president’s should be allowed on twitter after this….

Gets pretty old, denouncing something you’ve never supported in the first place. Insisting that he do so is just attempting to associate him (and any supporters they can add in0 with the subject. The sad thing is, with people who don’t think for themselves, it obviously works very well. Have you stopped beating your wife? Pretty much the same exercise. No answer is acceptable. Also, has always amazed me how people associate nazis with the right. The name is a contraction of national socialists (in German) They were leftist progressive liberals and any honest person who’s studied it for any length of time knows this. But they’re pretty good at remaining silent (if they don’t, they’re liable to be labeled a nazi)
“Fine people on both sides” Everyone in the media knows he was referring to ordinary Americans who don’t support erasing our history, and In the un edited speech, he specifically says he’s not referring to the white supremacists, but you haven’t heard that, have you? Amazing how the media seemed to lose that little bit of audio.

Also, it’s possible that plenty of your neighbors like Biden (or are at least Dems), but are flat out afraid of repercussions for openly declaring.

To be fair, that statement applies in reverse too. There are plenty of places where putting up a Trump sign was asking for flying rocks and graffiti, if not molotovs.

Both sides have become extremist. “If you’re not with us you’re against us” applies in spades.

Made it really hard to predict a winner. Everybody was lying on the polls.

Certainly, there are radicals in both camps. It was stated in that particular fashion as a response to Jackie’s observation about a lack of a specific sign, which implied residing in a district favouring a particular candidate. It was sloppy of me to leave my observation in a polarizing rhetoric. Thank you for providing the counter point.

Hopefully, whoever gets in will start building bridges between communities rather than

I really like the way you have Reggie quickly dismiss his dad’s question regarding his romantic endeavors. It’s a very subtle way to express the strained relationship between them. At least I thought so.

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