nickiwest

Those Republicans aren't gone. They're just Democrats now because the entire spectrum of political discourse in the US has shifted that far right.

Remember when the Cheneys found themselves on the outs with the Republicans? Their alliance with Dems would have been utterly unthinkable 25 years ago, but look at them now. As Republicans move further right and Democrats keep trying to court "centrist" voters, all they're doing is moving their party to the right.

This is one of those weird right-wing talking points that can be easily disproved. I think this disingenuous discourse contributes to Fox News viewers' perception that crime in the US is out of control when it's actually at its lowest in decades in most cities.

The US does have capital punishment as a federal penalty, but it is not commonly used. There are particular "aggravating" factors to a federal murder charge that can make it eligible for the death penalty.

Capital sentences are far more likely punishments at the state level, and a little more than half of the states still use the death penalty.

I have to assume that any witch selling curses on Etsy doesn't believe in the Rule of Three.

I wonder how many really identify as witches and actually cast the spells people pay them for.

I would be surprised if Texas doesn't have a very specific law about sex ed in schools and what can be taught at specific grade levels.

Any state that is christofascist enough to require a display of the Ten Commandments in schools is probably also prudish enough to punish teachers for honest discussions of human sexuality.

They do, but the white pages are nearly nonexistent now that almost everyone has a cell instead of a landline.

I haven't lived in the US for 4 years now, but when I did, we had phone books dropped on our front porch every six months. I'd see one, pick it up, carry it through the house, and deposit it directly in the recycling bin.

I live near a volcano, and I'd say most of the "dust" in our home is actually very fine volcanic ash.

There's definitely some skin cells and pet dander in there. There's just no way that those things are a majority of what we sweep up every few days, because our collective mass cannot possibly be dwindling that quickly.

A quick search suggests that one square inch of skin has 19 million skin cells. At a rate of 1000 per hour, it would take 19,000 hours (791.6 days) for one person to shed enough cells to equal one square inch of skin. Two humans live in my household, so we'll say for us together it would take roughly a year.

I'm sweeping up multiple cubic inches of dust multiple times a week. If dust were "mostly" skin cells, we should only need to dust a little bit once a year.

I think there are certain things that we, as a society, can agree are worthy of feeling shame.

Racism is probably number one.

But asking LLMs for any kind of advice or using them as search engines should be pretty high on that list.

You'll have to add a couple of instances of "dang ol'" on your own to make that work.

How is a city spending $200k per homeless resident and still not providing them with housing?

That's more than 8 years' worth of rent/mortgage at $2k per month. And even longer in a more reasonably-priced home.

I understand there are more expenses than just rent, but I also understand that it's nearly impossible to get a job if you don't have a permanent residence. If we've got a homelessness crisis that includes working families, why wouldn't the states want to help those families?

A rent/mortgage assistance program seems like it would do a lot more long-term good than simply "cleaning up" encampments.

I would venture to say it never is. I worked in a toxic environment for five years, and it literally made me ill.

My hair started falling out in big handfuls and I had constant digestive problems. I went to a series of doctors and ended up with an endocrinologist who said my thyroid was overactive and might need to be irradiated to stop the problems. Then at my next appointment, it was under-active. It didn't make sense.

I had already been looking for a new job, and I changed jobs after that second appointment. A month later, all of my problems had gone away. It turned out all the havoc in my body was just due to stress.

They could have quadrupled my pay and it still wouldn't have been worth the effects on my health.

The right to roam was something I found really charming and fascinating when I visited Scotland. We took a tour to see some standing stones and other ancient monuments, and I was shocked to find out that several of our destinations were in people's sheep pastures.

Our guide was really strict about our not littering (duh) or feeding the sheep (which I never would have dreamed of doing). He said that in some of the more popular places, the farmers have lost livestock to idiot tourists feeding them whatever junk food they have on hand.

But some people apparently really want fudge, pancakes, and old-time photographs!