Anise (they/she)

That is what I read it as too. Happy Pride!

Ah spring! Flowers blooming, bird songs… BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA… Goddamn leaf blowers.

No. Being politically active is of the upmost importance to me right now. I’m exhausted, but this election year is a matter of survival for queer people.

That’s weird because all except prusa are Chinese made. My issue with Bambu is that it is a closed ecosystem, but they are undeniably very capable machines.

A “fun” game when reading quotes from bigots is to swap out “gender ideology” with “bodily autonomy” to realize how absurd, hateful, and fascist the message really is. That’s really what we’re talking about; being trans isn’t a choice but expressing your true gender is somewhat* a choice you make with your body and aesthetic. Fascists don’t want people to have freedom, they want to have power over you for power’s sake. The pushback against “gender ideology” isn’t the reasoned philosophic debate that they want it to sound like, it’s a war against already-marginalized people. It’s “a boot stamping on a human face” because power is both the means and the ends for these fucks. Anyone supporting these assholes should ask themselves what happens if they finally succeed to stamp out the queer menace. Fascists’ continued existence requires another group to persecute and if history is any guide it will be religious minorities, racial minorities, political rivals, etc. until the world is empty and there is no “fruitful ‘tension” that Pope Franky states that he values so much aside from the powerful and those that they decided to keep as slaves.

*somewhat because for many the choice is transition or suicide

Did you even read this article? Frank made his stance very clear that he is making trans people his enemy.

Yes, this. I wore makeup and spent all day in the wood shop yesterday. We better burn down society so that isn’t allowed. Never mind that the world is literally burning and homelessness is rampant even in the richest cities. Don’t look at that, look over here at the queer person!

“today the ugliest danger is gender ideology, which cancels out differences”

Well I’m glad he said the misogynistic part out loud. In a religion in which only men can hold power, blurring the lines between who can be a man undermines their power structure. They see women as inferior chattel and the strict gender binary allows them to enforce their hegemony. I suppose the pope thinks that LGBT* people around the world being murdered and persecuted is a good thing as long as the cis white straight men get to stay in power.

Your position is a joke, and everyone with 2 brain cells can tell that it can only exist by enslaving half of the population and trying to murder another 2%. Like any good tiny dictator, you don’t inspire respect for people to follow you, you reach for the cudgel of violence, and make no mistake, your words inspire violence just as much as if you lit the torches yourself. Your god will judge you accordingly.

The current car market is due for a shakeup. I think new cars are WAY too big, have lots of spyware, and are too expensive. If I go EV, I’ll probably do a conversion for my old compact car, there are starting to be a few crate motors out there.

Look no further than the world’s militaries for this. They drill drill drill until soldiers react automatically without having to think about how they will react in a hostile situation. Its not enough to learn what to do once if you want a fast response.

I am a healthy adult and I’m also continually enraged at the state of sidewalks in my area. When I walk my dog there are some routes I simply cannot take because the sidewalk just… ends. I think some lots extend all of the way to the street and it’s up to the property owner to put in sidewalks and many simply don’t. If I walk across their lawn to get to the next private sidewalk I get yelled at for messing up the grass that they spend “so much time and money” maintaining; fine, it’s your property and I’ll stay off, but what a waste of resources. Unless it’s a particularly quiet road, I shouldn’t have to walk in the street. The city-maintained sidewalks that do exist are a travesty: no curb cuts as you noted, tree roots that create huge steps, holes, and some have no curbs so people just drive on the sidewalk. The city doesn’t want to do anything about it because these are either privately “maintained” and they can’t, or it costs money and they don’t want to.

I do think that mobility scooters should come in off-road versions because I’ve never seen one. I don’t see why $3000 can’t buy something closer to an electric ATV with knobbly tires, full suspension, and a torquey motor that can mount curbs like a boss, but it’s a chair format and is limited to fast-walking speeds so that it isn’t a car. It’s probably a low-volume issue.

Requiring CDLs for these huge monstrosities would finally put pressure on automakers to return to more reasonable car bodies and it would make sure that people who have to drive big vehicles at least are qualified to do so. Traffic tickets should also scale with the size of the vehicle since a speeding Range Rover presents different risks to the public than a speeding Smart Car.

Real investment in walkable cities and suburbs is the harder solution but the better one. If you could walk your kid to preschool that eliminates a car trip. Walking exposes you to the elements, but walking speed doesn’t amplify rain, cold, or heat like biking does. Zoning laws should allow a preschool, a grocery store, a pharmacy, a community space, and a hardware store to exist within easy walking distance for you. Bike paths should connect you to the next community. Miles of uninterrupted residential-only zoning is choking our planet.

I’m sorry, I had assumed you were a young student. I hope that things get better for you.

I’ve been there. Hang in there, adulthood is better.

Bikes are an order of magnitude less dangerous by virtue of being an order of magnitude less massive.

So what you’re saying is pogo sticks and stilts are fair game?

Time to find a different dentist. They might think cavities are just God’s will.

What about all of someone’s future unborn grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren? Public policy now requires fortune telling to see what deductions one is eligible for based on future events?