And speaking of Friday, it’s time for the weekly reminder! (CW: swearing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6tfEZI54Jg

assumed that anyone I dated would flop over like a dead fish in bed,

Those women do exist. I have dated them. They were raised as you describe yourself being raised, and thought sexual relationships were entirely the man’s job. Sex was something that happened to them, not something they would actively pursue or direct.

Fortunately, the world has all types. You can absolutely find someone who wants the save dynamic you are looking for. Dating is trial-and-error so you’ll have to deal with some duds along the way, but you’ll get there.

Oh, how could I miss Louisiana? It’s the place with the highest incarceration rate in the world.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/2021.html

There is no universal, objective answer. It depends who you are, your financial situation, your political views, etc.

That said, the states that suck the most for the most people are conservative places with lots of rural poverty. Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, …

It would be spun as a win for small government/libertarian ideals. Get government control out of private lives and all that jazz.

That is likely a new swarm looking for a home. When an established hive gets too crowded, they will create a new queen who will then fly away with a subset of the workers to establish a new hive.

If you want to make your local beekeeper’s club very happy, call them and tell them where this swarm is! They will come and collect it.

The Catholic press has picked it up, too:

https://www.ncronline.org/news/california-bishops-scramble-tend-catholics-feeling-hunted-ice-agents

There are hints that the current government’s actions are widening a cultural rift in the church. Considering how large the Catholic church is, I’m really interested to see how this plays out.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/trumps-immigration-agenda-widening-fissures-catholic-hierarchys-consensus

There is a significant group of conservative Catholics who view any change as a departure from the One True Faith™. You can still find churches that do not follow the modernizations from the Second Vatican Council, which happened back in the 1950s. Pope Francis was seen as a radical by many of these people.

Good point. I will add that to the long list of reforms we need in the US criminal system.

Mandatory minimums are a problem. Judges lose discretion to tailor the punishment to the specifics of the case. Minimums may be pushed unreasonably high so politicians can claim to be “tough on crime.” (This happened big time in the US, starting with the War on Drugs in the 1970s and continuing through the 1990s.) Both of those lead to more people in prison longer than they should be.

Also, at least in the US, not all crimes carry mandatory minimum sentences. This gives prosecutors a new source of leverage:

The use of mandatory minimums effectively vests prosecutors with powerful sentencing discretion. The prosecutor controls the decision to charge a person with a mandatory-eligible crime and, in some states, the decision to apply the mandatory minimum to an eligible charge. Rather than eliminate discretion in sentencing, mandatory minimums therefore moved this power from judges to prosecutors. The threat of mandatory minimums also encourages defendants to plead to a different crime to avoid a stiff, mandatory sentence.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/fact-sheet/how-mandatory-minimums-perpetuate-mass-incarceration-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Mandatory minimums can also lead to significant racial disparities. The linked article cites an example of very different minimum sentences for different drug offenses, leading to a sharp rise in incarceration rates for blacks but much less so for whites.

The internet has always been a collection of social media platforms: bulletin boards, Usenet, IRC, people hosting little personal sites and making contact with each other via email, etc. It got bad when big money arrived and brought in the general public. First is was platforms like AOL’s chat rooms and forums, and later things like Facebook and Twitter. We are all living in eternal September now.

Exhibit A: this t-shirt from 1994

Side note: If worrying about climate isn’t enough, we can also worry about potential famine as we use up our fossil fuels.

We are able to feed the world because of the Haber-Bosch process. This process uses fossil fuels, usually natural gas, to produce synthetic ammonia for fertilizer. That fertilizer makes modern high-yield farming possible. “Without the Haber-Bosch process we would only be able to produce around two-thirds the amount of food we do today.”
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/features/cewctw-fritz-haber-and-carl-bosch-feed-the-world/

In the US it’s roughly a tie between road transportation and energy generation (which lumps together both heat and electricity).

(Source: University of Michigan https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability-indicators/carbon-footprint-factsheet)

The global breakdown is similar: https://www.wri.org/insights/4-charts-explain-greenhouse-gas-emissions-countries-and-sectors

The solutions? Build mass transit, live in temperate climates, buy less stuff, …? Honestly, I don’t think we’re not going to fix the problem with simple, local improvements (though by all means do what you can). There are global demographic forces to contend with. A century ago there were 2 billion people on earth. Now there are >8 billion, and in my lifetime we will surpass 9 billion. Many of those people are climbing out of poverty, and they want cars and air conditioners and all the other energy-intensive things that rich countries have enjoyed for a century. IMO we’re going to need massive technological changes (like powering much of the world with nuclear very soon) in concert with a major population reduction and/or major changes to how people expect to live.

That was my first thought. Where are all the self-described Libertarians who should be losing their shit over this? They should be in the street screaming “posse comitatus!” at the tops of their lungs.

Same here. Paper ballots that can be machine scanned and stored for manual audits seem like the best possible method.

Not my language, but I like the Dutch word “peperduur” for “very expensive.” I like that the meaning has both historical and emotional aspects: pepper was once very expensive, and a high price can be considered spicy.

In English, “crestfallen” is a good one. When I read it I immediately imagine someone hanging their head in dismay.

If the mountain contains valuable minerals then the cost will be negative; you can make money by removing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining

Though, depending on the geology, you might not want to build a town on the resulting site. Sometimes heavy metals leach out of the disturbed rock, resulting in polluted surface water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_mine_drainage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit

That looks… uncomfortable.

It’s wild how many episodes have been edited or removed from circulation due to their content.

https://renandstimpy.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_banned/censored_episodes

Remember that interviews go both ways. You are trying to see if this company is a place you want to spend half your waking hours. Ask the interviewer where they see themselves in 5 years. Watch their reaction closely. Do they sigh, or hesitate? You might get a telling bit of honesty out of them.