I feel that I'm being manipulated. The headlines about this story used to be "Singer gets punished with 74 lashes for violating some religious law". Now I find out that you can just avoid the lashes by paying a fine. It's like saying "man faces prison for going 10km/h over the speed limit" because if you don't pay a fine, you eventually end up in prison.

And even in this story that reveals that you choose between paying a fine and corporal punishment, I feel manipulated. 100 MILLION troman sounds like a lot, but it turns out it's just 730 bucks.

How incredibly gross and blatant, this consent manufacturing machine. I guess it doesn't need to be subtle, people only remember headlines. Damage done, mission successful. Maybe war on Iran is good actually. We'll get it right this time.