I wonder if the whales still tell each other stories about the whale oil boom years of the 19th century.

And hell, let’s say we can prove whales do have communication just as complex as ours. Suddenly their intelligence and sentience is as proven as our own. What rights do whales have? If they’re as intelligent as people, they’rd not just animals. They simply are people. An animal as intelligent as a person is simply a person. Full stop. We have to adjust our model of the world to be one where we just have people swimming around in the ocean. Let that really sink in to your world view. There are just people out there living amongst the waves. And like all people they have certain natural rights. What rights do they have? Can they sue us in our courts for polluting their waters? Do we owe these people reparations for what our ancestors did to them? Do we need to start negotiating treaties with them, the same as we would any other population of people?

My first thought on contemplating the idea of whales truly being as intelligent and aware as we are? I immediately think, “my god, what have we done?”

Yes you can take out parent plus loans without collateral. That’s their entire reason for existing.

You’re confusing cause and effect. Usually people use drugs and have mental health issues because they are homeless. They’re not homeless because they have those maladies. Homeowners weather those challenges just fine. And living on the street creates drug and mental health issues. If I had to sleep on the sidewalk, I sure as hell would want to be high all day. Wouldn’t you?

A homeless drug addict is just a middle class drug addict with a smaller bank account balance.

So your parents borrowed against the value of their home to put you through college. They could have also taken out parent plus loans to do the same thing. Why is this an argument for letting home prices soar?

Stalin thought Siberia needed a lot of people living there. Look how that turned out.

Building more housing is the solution, even if those homes largely go to the upper middle class and wealthy. Building new homes primarily for well off people isn’t a historic anomaly, it’s the norm. If you’re already building a house, it doesn’t take that much more to add some luxury features to make it appeal to the high end of the market. This is how it’s always been. Historically, the affordable housing of today is the luxury housing of yesterday.

Preventing new home construction doesn’t prevent neighborhoods from gentrifying. You just end up with yuppies living in newly renovated former tenements.

My head canon is like this. Sword guy is hanging out in his room, sitting in a lotus position, sword displayed on a wooden stand in front of him, candles arranged around him, sword guy deep in meditation.

All of a sudden, from the floor below, sword guy hears the unmistakable sound of someone breaking into his home. He does not fear. He does not panic. He stands up, grabs his katana, and calmly says, “at last, my time has come…”

Not like this…

In 2009, a John Hopkins University sword guy used a katana to kill an intruder.

That’s the version of the Jetsons Hanna-Barbera didn’t have the balls to make. In the original version of the intro, George has a car that folds up into a briefcase-sized object, light as a feather. In the alternate universe version, it just keeps folding, then small enough that it just flies right up George’s ass. No need to carry it around. When you need it, you call to it, and it flies out and unfolds. It stays clean due to future tech. And it’s been done for so long it’s just socially considered normal. In the alternate Jetsons future, people just carry their cars right up their asses.

No! What would be the car bedroom must be the workshop!

Maybe there was a process of natural selection, where all the people sensible enough who could get out got out, and it was 100% stubborn people remaining by the time the picture was taken.

For some reason this inspired me to evil.

I propose that we tax inattentive drivers. How? By adding easily avoidable large tolls along major roadways.

Imagine a road with two lanes in each direction. You’re driving along a stretch of long empty country road. Over the course of several miles, all sorts of signs, lights, and warnings announce that the right lane, and only the right lane, will be subject to a $100 toll. And a toll reader is set up to do just that. If you drive through the left lane, no toll. If you drive through the right lane, $100. Again, you provide plenty of warning. You would have to be half asleep, drunk, completely distracted, or drugged out of your mind to miss the signs. Hell, we’ll post it in all sorts of languages even.

Now, if you’re worried about a potential traffic bottleneck forming…no worries! We can hook the tolls up to a traffic counter, and the tolls are only active when traffic counts are very low. So only active during low levels of sparse traffic. And we could make all the signs electronic, so they all turn off when the tolls are inactive.

I propose we toll inattentive drivers.

At some point, it’s literally that. You have to kick everyone out of their cars and start loading the cars up on wheel dollies, then slide them out sideways. Or bring in a forklift to do the same.

Look what thinking cautiously has got us. Look what thinking audaciously has got them. What rational rational Republican voter would have thought that Trump was a good potential candidate in 2016? Rational opinion was that Trump was a candidate doomed from the start. Yet the Republicans through caution to the wind and went for the inspiring candidate. And look what it got them.

Every election we choose the path of least resistance. Every election we talk ourselves out of the truly inspiring candidate, all in the name of electability. How many Democrats have voted against the progressive primary candidate, the one who could inspire, the one who could rally…all in the name of electability? Hillary was the candidate in 2016 because she was more electable than Bernie. Biden was the candidate in 2020 because he was more electable than Bernie. Biden was nearly the candidate in 2024 because sticking with the incumbent was simply the rational and cautious move.

Maybe it’s time we have faith for once. Maybe it’s time we believe in ourselves and our message for a change. Maybe it’s time to stop talking ourselves out of running our strongest potential candidates. As a great poet said, you have to believe in impossible things, or else they can never come to be.

Depends. Have you ever had a passport in your dead name? That is the critical question. If so, then they can see it in your records when you go for a passport renewal. And if so, you’ll receive a passport back under your birth sex.

As far as the effects of having an incorrect passport gender marker? It can get you in a lot of trouble. I’m a trans gal myself. There’s no easy way for me to even prove that I am trans. I could strip naked in front of someone and it wouldn’t be obvious. Yet under these rules, when I update my passport, I’ll end up with an M marker. This will make it nearly impossible for to travel internationally.

This can cause big issues when crossing a border. It can mean you’re pulled aside for extra scrutiny. It can get you outright turned away from countries hostile to lgbt people. It can make border agents suspect your entirely legitimate document is fake. Hell, the same conservatives who would give me such a document would argue I’m committing some act of fraud for dressing and looking a way that doesn’t match my documents.

Just imagine what trouble you might encounter if any basic info on your ID was clearly wrong. Imagine your passport says your height is a foot different from your actual height. Can you not see how that would obviously cause you problems when trying to cross a border?

Eh, I don’t think they give a shit about the natives to be honest.

Jews were only 1% of the pre-Nazi German population. Trans people are only 1% of the US population.

Yup. The Zoomer conservatives won’t reform their ethics. They’ll just replace the teachers of poor black kids with AI chat bots.

After rebuilding it, you drive your new 30k EV out of its refit garage. Pulling out into the road, you immediately get hit by someone using their cell phone, totalling your car.

The insurance company offers you $5k for your vehicle, as they value it as a twenty year old used car on a rebuilt title.

These things are never that simple.

Yes. Spitting distance. They were both close elections. What rock have you been living under?

Unlikable to you. Not to his voters. And Trump also beat ten times as many men as he did women. So logically we can’t ever run a male candidate ever again. The voters clearly don’t like male Democratic candidates. Biden only won due to covid.