You overestimate how much nature we step in on a given day. It’s usually basically cement everywhere

US didn’t really ban it because they didn’t like it. While there was a women’s group protesting against the alcoholism in the country, I don’t think it would have had any traction were it not for the anti union push.

Saloons were a great meetup spot to make unions. Everyone from work was already there. If companies could make saloons illegal, it would make it harder to make unions. But there was a problem. The US got a lot of its tax revenue from alcohol taxes.

So they pitched the idea of replacing alcohol tax with income tax, making the budget balance (in fact much improve!). So it got passed to benefit the US government budget, and help the union situation for companies.

It was not prohibited for long. As you stated, it quickly went awry. But it didn’t matter. The US government now gets its income tax, plus alcohol tax now. Saloons became less popular since they were gone long enough for habits to change.

I’m not against gun ownership. I’m against zero gun ownership regulation. Requiring background checks seems like a no brainer but we cannot even get to that part. The next I would suggest is a weekend long course on the proper use, safety, cleaning, and storage of your weapon before you are allowed to buy one. Finally, I think we should have that class reupped every 2 years to keep your license to own the firearm. It’s a dangerous thing to have around and most good gun owners would support some of this, even if it is a hassle. It could be made fun too though. Free ammo for some range practice or something. Maybe a few for the class covers that, I don’t know. Consider it a meetup with other people with similar interests.

But… those places all price gouge too :(.

So they shouldn’t bother trying to fix the errors of their ways?

As someone buying a color screen boox soon, I think it’s worth a mention that the battery is MUCH worse on boox because it has to run android. Like, the boox may last a day or two vs the Kindle Paperwhite lasting a couple weeks.

It’s not a huge issue if you are home a lot and can charge, but I love the Paperwhite because it feels like it ALWAYS is charged. It just doesn’t have the color screen so I guess I will have both now, one for comics and one for books.

Good insurance! Our child born this year the hospital bill looks like around $8k after insurance, but we keep getting other bills from the provider’s offices so it’s hard to say exactly. Fortunately my wife has a secondary insurance of some sort we can submit the $8k to get that knocked down to hopefully $4k. If it works. It’s been months trying to get it sorted.

No I think it’s the opposite. They expect people to get pregnant and have kids (though with abortion and birth control that is happening less- hence targeting those recently). This is designed to make sure they stay poor so that the wage slave class stays well populated.

Health insurance still leaves you with a large bill. Expect like $10k for the hospital part for a lot of insurances. Don’t forget the obgyn visits throughout the pregnancy (probably only $25-$75 per visit, depending on if you need a specialist). Labs are extra. In fact, the one that really tells a lot of info (lots of recessive gene issues can be found with it) is like a $750 lab that insurance doesn’t usually pay for (“it’s too new, and not required”).

I like all the comments about burnout and addressing that. When I was in a similar mindset, I would dream of hiking the pct. 6 months on a trail where all I had to worry about was walking. Or I could take a 0 day and enjoy camp. Slow paced life. I even bought books and learned the equipment I would need. Spent vacations testing that equipment and adjusting to what I actually needed. I remember coming back from five nights out staying in a camping hammock and being amazed at the “palace” I live in comparatively.

I could go at any time I felt work was absolutely too much. I almost did. For some reason, having all that knowledge and feeling like I could go was enough of a mental break for me to carry on.

At least consider doing one of the long trails. It might address your burnout and give you the feeling of closeness to nature you are looking for. Maybe you will want to do a homestead after that. Maybe that hike will be enough. Worth a consideration anyways.

Hi I’m not vegan but I’m always looking for healthy recipes! Do you have any favorite websites to find inspiration? I recently figured out I could press, marinate, then dehydrate tofu and it gives it some texture. It’s now like 70% as good as throwing chicken or something into my rice, which is often good enough for me.

Any ideas or thoughts like that? I don’t even know what most vegan’s general diet entails. I’ve eaten at a local vegan place but the food, while delicious, was not exactly healthy.

Audiobooks and podcasts are great for me because I use them while running. I’m learning a ton about history lately, but sometimes it’s nice to read a novel while exercising and obviously cannot hold a book.

I’m sure video plays a similar role for a lot of people’s use case. Particularly younger generations likely engage better with it due to ubiquitous presence as they grew up. Though that may have been bad for their attention spans with things like tik tok.

Disagree. It’s not just the laws, but the public support that has me crazy here. My very Catholic coworker so fully supports the governor that when the Catholic Church came out against some of his stances, she said they were the ones in the wrong! Those stances being that it should not be illegal to give a ride to an immigrant as thats just being a good neighbor, and it’s silly to expand the death penalty. Her daughter works for Disney too. She doesn’t care. Guy could come in and take a shit on the floor and she would try to explain how that was the most moral thing he could do, and how refreshing it is to have a sensible governor.

Her views are not abnormal here.

While I agree for some, I think the media has helped instil those beliefs for a lot of others.

For instance, before row v wade was gone, abortion was a big issue. Then states rights, etc. But that’s not fun anymore. Now my conservative friends are super interested in who is allowed to use the women’s bathroom and compete in women’s sports. And hunter Biden of course.

Not sure why everyone is downvoting any opinion that isn’t “give minorities all the available resources!”.

It should not be: you need x% of your classroom seats to go to minorities. That’s silly because talented and driven people will be sent away to make space. It should be more like: “you must provide an avenue to help those who can prove disadvantaged status to take extra classes and then reapply to your program.” These classes could be online or whatever to make it as easy as possible for someone with less means but still driven to succeed have a way to better themselves.

I think what he was saying, but slightly missed, was, if both people needed guitar classes, we should not give the guy with the hand issues the only available seat.

Really though, if we just spend a bit more on education, there could be seats for everyone! So maybe the last picture could be fertilizing the tree to make it bigger or something.