I can believe it. Physical inactivity, less creative play for children, distraction all the time.

Mind you, in some ways I don’t buy it - the two of my kids who were very academically motivated both learned much more in school than I did (I went during a conservative time when the schools were doing “back to basics” which didn’t help, but simple research before the Internet was so difficult that I didn’t have access to as much as they did, it took more effort to learn less) and those two are whip-smart. So I think the potential to be smart is higher now. Also maybe we have included more people in the measurements now that it’s easier to get the data.

But physical inactivity does harm brain health, plastic probably does, the dumbing down again in the schools here (is this some 40-50 year cycle?) certainly does. I do, like @drascus@sh.itjust.works work at maintaining my thinking by trying to learn new things, not just get good at what I am good at already; and do a lot to maintain physical health, meditate, and try to guard my sleep as much as possible within the context of a normal life.

If student artwork is allowed, as the administration states, she needs to have a word with the art teacher. A sign just like hers with real student handprints would be even better than the purchased poster.

Google assistant was already a good listener, it seems to have gotten worse, but compared to anything else I’ve tried to do with voice it was & is still the best at understanding, and can be set to be bilingual.

I honestly don’t understand this but it’s very Google to push the change before the replacement is fully baked. They did that with YouTube Music too.

I have done sous vide steak and sous vide egg cups. Both very good but I can reverse sear steak and get as good a result; the egg cups though were incredible and I don’t know another way to get the low and consistent temperature. It’s like a warm water bath for them.

What makes a protest illegal?

On the other hand, our formerly quasi-municipal energy company is now owned by a Canadian conglomerate. I’d not mind unwinding that.

Like it or not, we are all connected across North America.

We have a vibrant and sometimes political teams chat at my work, we would be toast if we were taken over by the magas. Yes we know it’s not private and do have also a group text. But haven’t ever worried since the whole organization is laid back regarding language and expression.

If I worked for the government? Hell no. No teams chat, not even “how was your weekend?” Nope nope nope.

Obviously this sucks, those asshole fascists can fall off a cliff but holy crap MEGA is a much better acronym than MAGA.

Not entirely, he’s from Michigan and grew up in a much more segregated environment, but he hit bottom a few years after we split, quit drinking and straightened out a lot.

My ex went through a horrible racist phase and decided I was “muddying his bloodline” because I did not “breed true” like a fucking purebred dog or something - our kids all came out looking different from each other (I am very fair and blue eyed, but more mixed background)

And I don’t think he even knew his own background and has a half native half sister, so I don’t understand how he could 1. Decide that I was not white and he was, and 2. Be racist at all like that without being mad at his mom.

It’s all so illogical, just a pretext for hate and blame.

What

The

Actual

Fuck?

By supporting they mean what? Calling the kid the name they want to be called by?

They don’t necessarily need to explicitly teach gender and racial studies, whatever. But don’t tell my kids’ teachers they can’t be courteous to the kids. The kids don’t care one bit when someone who was a girl comes back saying they are a boy, they are nonchalant as fuck about it.

You have lost this round, conservatives. The generation who will raise the next generation is already grown up with more reasonable teaching and parents who model tolerance, there are too many of us for you to be able to control us.

Go back to your lairs and work on some other evil plan.

Even setting aside people’s gender identity, 1.7% of the population is intersex. A law can’t make that untrue.

I got an 8 day migraine after the second COVID shot. Nothing with the first and never anything from the flu shot. Nothing from COVID booster after that but this year I got the flu & COVID booster together, never doing that again, 4 day migraine.

Well I am progressive as fuck politically and somewhat crunchy lifestyle -wise. Garden, ferment things, have made bread exclusively from sourdough for about 15 years now, really enjoy fermented foods like kimchi and pickles and sauerkraut.

The other fermenter in our family is the literal racist uncle, he makes incredible homemade foods, raised me a turkey for Thanksgiving one year, even.

Both of us came to it from a culinary background, not a political one, a way to get good food. I don’t think it maps well, but there is certainly a subset of crunchy lifestyle people who started out progressive and were coopted by the right wing.

Well hopefully the world will figure this out, or population On a small scale it’s so obvious that soil needs to be managed for a healthy garden or small farm. Big farms just throw down fertilizer (which was a world changing improvement to agriculture) and don’t do enough to keep the soil alive and healthy. The headline “poor soil forces fertilizer use” is sort of backwards as it’s the industrial farming that’s sucked the life out of the soil.

All insurance. I have paid enough to homeowners to buy another house, with no claims. Health insurance we’ve had maybe 5 years where we got out more than we paid in, maybe. Could certainly have bought a dozen cars with what I’ve paid car insurance, net of what they have paid to or for me.

All these you can only win by losing but all are worse for being for-profit rather than just risk pooling.

Health insurance I explain to people as: we are paying in taxes for the most expensive groups (old, poor, sick) plus paying for the work insurance premiums, plus paying most of the cost of seeing a doctor for anything except the annual wellness visit. It would be cheaper to cover everyone with the national plan. But everything we pay, is paying someone else’s salary, right? All those people want it to stay like this.

No. A priest, sure. They should only offer religious marriage to those who conform to the religion, whatever it is.

State licensing of the relationship, if offered at all, needs to be offered without discrimination. That is separation of church and state. An official of the state must officiate according to the law, not their own personal beliefs.

Anytime we get a duck I spend a long time skinning it and rendering the fat, because holy crap it is so good, and the de-fatted duck meat is easier to work with anyway. I do also render lard if we have pig, and other than that keep butter, olive oil and avocado oil on hand. Not really for health, any of that, it’s to have good food but I do think less processed is likely healthier.

Chicken fat, schmaltz, is good for cooking too - put 4 salted, skin on, bone in chicken thighs in a cold iron skillet skin side down, turn on the stove and let them cook until the skin is brown, flip and finish, remove, then into the hot pan chopped greens, saute them in the chicken fat with a little white wine, so good.

Beef tallow is not delicious, though. It just doesn’t taste good.

That sucks. If you want an adoptive mom, I have lots of kids, what’s one more?

Also this 53% number is fucking with me. I know so many white women and only one (70 years old) would vote for trump.

What are you on about? Why should people who don’t want kids be forced to forgo sex?

If someone anticipates birth control being outlawed, stockpiling it is a reasonable response.

I would recommend an IUD though.