June 12th:

“I am pleased to confirm the 6th round of Iran US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday the 15th,” Bad Albusaidi, the country’s foreign minister said on social media.

Israel struck Iran later the same day.

So why should Iran have any reason to believe that “talks” will stop Israel and the US?

I think I experienced similar feelings which usually appear when I was comparatively “better” than during the times that counted as major depressive episodes, according to the professionals I dealt with.

But honestly the way our psyche deals with depression is highly individual and good, responsible therapists/psychiatrists/neurologists/… consider a variety of symptoms before making a final diagnosis. With the exception of a high risk of suicide which will immediately place the sufferer in the “major depressive disorder” category, because of the immediate danger to their lives.

What I want to say: Probably only an expert will be able to tell you exactly what kind of depression you have/had. And I cannot claim to be one. I am simply someone who suffers from it too and I read up about it.

I am sorry for being the bearer of sad news. Suicidal thoughts are the most easily recognizable of the symptoms. And even if they are less persistent between major depressive episodes, a lot of us are still stuck with depression in one form or another for the rest of our lives.

And that’s the difference between minor depressive disorder and major depressive disorder. Thank you for attending Depression 101.

I moments of crisis, I will just start crying, but I can do that very fast.

The Guardian shedding crocodile’s tears? Boohoo, we spend years vilifying trans people and now look what happened…

For years on end Fox “News” told these people that they are the vanguard in the culture wars. This is the intended outcome.

As other people have already mentioned: No, you are not paranoid. The pattern that you recognise is fake outrage or ragebait.

If you have some time to spare and are curiously about how the right-wing outrage machine works, I can highly recommend the video essay “Stellar Blade: The Fake Outrage” by Shaun. His videos can be a little dry, but he goes to great lengths to pick apart a single example (the video game Stellar Blade) and how the right-wing first embraced the game (in the name of their fight against “wokeism, DEI,…”), only to then do a full about-face when the game did not turn out exactly as they had envisioned (and claim that the game was full of “wokeism, DEI,…”).

It’s a long video, but it does a very good job to expose the mix of unsubstantiated claims, copy-pasted accusations and ultimately fake outrage that underlies right-wing behavior these days.

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

The stock went down when Tesla’s sales numbers for the first quarter of 2025 got out and showed a decrease of sold vehicles, on top of Musk’s shenanigans and the protests at Tesla showrooms. Now these events have been “priced in” and the stock operates on vague estimates and wishful thinking again until the next slew of substantial bad news hits, at the latest when the next quarterly numbers are due.

The Free Speech crowd will be here any minute now! /s

Look! It’s… Ooh, snacks!

Additionally to what has already been mentioned: People are susceptible to politics that confirm their prejudices. Right-wing political thought is largely based on confirming that whatever prejudices people hold, they are morally good and justified. Thus elevating an in-group above out-groups. That is a powerful lure.

Congratulations, BeardyGrumps!
🎉🏆🍾

A “Build a house for your friends” game: Take the construction and resource gathering from a game such as (for example) Valheim and combine it with an Animal Crossing - Happy Home Paradise style gameplay that tasks the player to design houses for various characters.

This comment is definitely not inspired by spending countless hours building houses in Valheim for purely aesthetic reasons. /s