Chetzemoka

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The most effective medication is the one that actually gets used.

Christ how are people this ignorant? The ICIJ has several hundred people working for it.

https://www.icij.org/about/

And it wasn’t a foreign government. Caruana Galizia was MALTESE. She was investigating her own government.

Nothing at all bad happened to the two German journalists who published the Panama Papers. Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier are both very much alive and well, and have started a nonprofit organization in honor of their friend and colleague, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was murdered by an operative of the Maltese government officials who she was investigating for corruption that was revealed in the Panama Papers.

The investigations and revelations produced by The Daphne Project are ongoing. These are journalists who refuse to be silenced by one woman’s murder.

But to understand that, you’d have to be interested in not being ignorant for five seconds instead of just parroting things you saw online because you think it makes you sound smart.

https://www.occrp.org/en/thedaphneproject/

As a person who has had many cats in my life, I am of the opinion that two cats is the best number of cats. If you can afford to care for and have space for a second cat, I’d say go for it.

If you’re not really experienced with cats, be aware that cats almost never get along immediately. It can take weeks of them seeming to hate each other before they become friendly. It’s helpful to put the new cat in a cage where the current cat can see and smell them, but can’t reach them with claws. That gives them a little space to get to know each other before the current cat feels like its territory is being invaded.

Hahaha, he’s great. Jimothy is one of his most common side characters. And he uses your naming convention for lots of his other side characters. Jimothy, Todrick, etc.

I believe you have been watching too many Dr. Glaucomflecken videos, my friend.

Swapped out the head unit on my 2016 car for a touchscreen that supports Android Auto. I got spoiled using a similar one in my friend’s rental car. It was only $600 installed at Best Buy. It’s so nice not to have to fight with keeping my phone in a display holder where I can see the map, and now I can control my phone-streamed music with my steering wheel controls. Makes driving so much more pleasant.

Bitchin’

I mean…

Textbook

Textbook

My actual Anatomy textbook is full of these weirdly sensual illustrations that are just… unnecessary.

Oh, so it’s yet another one of those problems caused by that whole “let’s take this four legged mammal body plan and make it stand upright” thing. Thanks, evolution!

I can’t tell you how often this ends old people’s lives. They start to aspirate food, get hospitalized for nasty pneumonia because of it, we try to feed them pureed food (essentially baby food all over again) and thicken their drinks, they struggle to stay hydrated and nourished because of it, they aspirate and end up in the hospital again. Rinse, repeat.

This is shockingly common. Evolution is a dick.