Are you suggesting a privatized National Weather Service and toll bridges would be better? If so, I have a nice bear-ridden town in New Hampshire you might like to move to.

Regulations are exactly how you deal with negative externalities.The EPA makes corporations pay for reducing pollution and cleanup. Why do you think corporations target EPA so much? Because EPA costs them money. Never hear any corporations whining about that free taxpayer-funded geological data coming out of USGS

I like clean water, good weather forecasts, and I want to fix the bridges.

Sheepsquatch is the new jackalope

The onshore tax havens Delaware, Wyoming, and Nevada are vastly worse in scope than any offshore country. They push the narrative about those “terrible foreign countries” to distract us from this fact.

The problem is US tax code, not offshore financial centers.

Why you gotta call me out like that?

This Podcast Will Kill You

They did a whole series on Covid including the history of development of vaccines

Concur. I’m a huge Trek fan, and The Expanse fits that blend of optimism and realpolitik.

Yes, Massachusetts. I have a dual fuel heat pump with natural gas backup installed in 2020, so it’s a newer system. And I have one heat pump mini split in the least energy efficient, but most used room in my house (large, high ceilings, exterior walls on three sides, and a skylight).

The first couple of years I noticed when it got just below freezing, the central heat pump seemed to struggle to keep up. Then this year I replaced my windows and got new wall insulation in both of the main bedrooms and bathrooms (previous insulation was original from the 1960s and shredded to bits with huge gaps.)

After those improvements, I’ve been running my heat pump down to 20⁰F/-7⁰C so far without any issues at all. I’m excited to see how cold we can get and this system still keep up. I am still supplementing my one large room with the mini split, but that’s mostly because all my plants are in here, so I keep this room warmer than 68⁰F/20⁰C.

Lmao, I’m your age and literally inhaled a bag of Werther’s while I had Covid because Paxlovid tastes so bad. And I’m about to buy a cane for those days when it would be very helpful to make my invisible disability more visible to all those people trying to rush around me in the grocery store. I old.

I’d miss you guys. I’ve jumped in on conversations on your instance a couple of times and it always seems like a nice place

Your facts don’t support your conclusion, kiddo.

We’re all saying that you’re up-playing it. It’s not that hard to understand.

Here, let me help you:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Overgeneralization

I have neighbors who got a one story tall inflatable dragon for Halloween last year and just left it up until Christmas. It was so popular that this year they have an entire yard full of Christmas dragons. I love it.

I’m in the middle of book 7 and holy what a shift. I’m in the part where it’s so overwhelming, you can’t even begin to imagine how this will get resolved. Very excited to read the last two books.

My friend, ongoing ignorance IS malice. I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you, but your family are just plain old racist.

(I say that as a person from a family full of very friendly, very racist people.)

Glad I’m not the only one who has witnessed this insane behavior. I made the mistake of leaving a grocery bag with bread on the floor once and only once. My youngest cat went ape shit and I came back into the room to a bread massacre right through the plastic bag.

I have zero idea what drives this

May I ask you about the nature of your heart problems exactly?

Because a “heart attack” is not actually a medical thing. What people usually mean when they say “heart attack” is what we call a myocardial infarction (lack of blood flow to the heart muscle caused by a blockage or constriction in a coronary artery.) And less commonly people use the term “heart attack” to refer to cardiac arrest where the heart just stops beating for some reason. (Myocardial infarction can turn into cardiac arrest, but cardiac arrest can happen because of any number of other things as well.)

So do you have a confirmed occlusion of a coronary artery? Or do you have a diagnosed cardiac arrhythmia of some kind? What are they planning to do to treat you? Because “don’t get excited” isn’t a long term management strategy. It’s usually just to get you through until you find a successful treatment.

(I’m a cardiac critical care nurse. AMA)

Fresh episodes of X-Files and Star Trek: TNG every week.

Just that whole experience of something on television being a cultural zeitgeist because everyone had to watch it at the exact same time because that was the only time it existed. Sure, you could record it on VHS and watch later, but it wasn’t the same. Even being at home watching alone felt like participating in a social event.

Well There’s Your Problem
Black Box Down
This Podcast Will Kill You

Apparently, I like listening to stories about death and disaster

This was very much my experience with the trans girl I grew up with 35 years ago. From the instant she was able to express preferences (I’m talking like age 18 months to 2 years), it was all princesses and dolls and makeup and trying on mom’s high heels. We all just assumed she was a gay boy because we had never heard of a transgender person before.

We encouraged her to just keep that behavior at home because she was bullied mercilessly for appearing to be an effeminate boy. But nothing would stop her; she was completely irrepressible.

When in high school, she told us she was really a girl, it was like the most face-palmingly obvious thing. Of COURSE that’s what we’d been seeing her entire life. It just made sense. That’s just who she is.