Chetzemoka

Mixed use land developments increase property values. My neighbors believe urban myths and lies, so I'm not particularly inclined to be any more fair to them than I would be to someone who believes that vaccines cause autism.

https://masslandlords.net/gentle-density-increases-nearby-property-values-evidence-shows-contrary-to-popular-belief/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-02/does-affordable-housing-lower-property-values

I own a house here too, ya know. I don't share their misguided concerns. Yes there will be traffic. I believe we have reasonable options to mitigate that.

But it looks like the rich, old NIMBYs are going to win this fight, and keep people locked out as always.

To me, it's all about rational return on investment providing economic incentives to achieve what we want to achieve.

My favorite example to explain what I mean is my own personal health insurance. I have a chronic medical condition that requires constant medication, frequent visits to specialists, and expensive medical tests and procedures. There is simply zero chance that I will ever pay enough in a monthly premium to cover what I cost. Meaning I am always a net financial loss for a private, for-profit insurance company.

This gives a private company every incentive in the world to obstruct and deny my care in hopes that I'll get frustrated and give up, or maybe even die and get off their books forever.

The government, on the other hand, has a positive financial incentive to keep me healthy. If I am healthy, I am working, paying taxes, buying goods and services that contribute to the economy, and hopefully contributing something beneficial to my community. Only the government (acting as a proxy for "society") naturally profits from insuring my healthcare.

This is why I believe we should have fully socialized medical care. Because there are some specific things that only the government has natural positive economic incentives that align with what is beneficial for the general public.

Whatever those things are, they should be socialized. And generally those things are basic life sustaining things like food, housing, medicine, education, utilities.

I'm fine with privatized capitalism in a very restricted, heavily regulated niche form. But all the basic necessities should be socialized.

I'm the only person on my street actually in favor of the proposed multi-use housing/shopping complex a developer wants to build a block over from us. I can't change the minds of all these old people. I'm pretty sure we're just fucked until they all move out or pass on.

Yes, but they're trying to figure out if that's where we're at or if this is a temporary blip from the Honga Tonga Honga Ha'apai volcano.

Most volcanoes that size would cool the planet by ejecting a bunch of ash and sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. But the Tonga volcano was underwater, so it threw a metric shitton of water vapor into the upper atmosphere instead, and this has a warming effect. This is part of the reason for the increase in precipitation on the West Coast of the US this year.

Add this volcano on top of the near simultaneous flip into an El Niño pattern, and they're just not sure how permanent the warming we saw this year is going to be. But any way you go about it, this is really not good. We've just experienced dramatic warming from two things that we can't predict and can't control, on top of the part where we're not doing nearly enough about the things we can control.

Use Amazon as a search engine, find what you need, then Google the manufacturer and buy it directly from them. You'd be surprised how many have free shipping . It's usually not two day shipping, but what do you really need that fast?

If it's electronics, buy online for local pickup at Best Buy. If it's tools or house supplies, buy online for local pickup at Lowe's or Home Depot. Buy online for local pickup at Target.

I haven't purchased anything from Amazon in 4 years. It's honestly way easier now than it was before Amazon started, but no one realizes that because Amazon got them locked in.

Reba McEntire! Love me some Reba
Alabama are another favorite of mine

Mary Chapin Carpenter is great too
The Judds
Loretta Lynn
Hank Williams Sr.
Kenny Rogers
Rosanne Cash
Waylon & Willie, baby (Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson)
Brooks & Dunn
Charlie Daniels Band

In a more modern iteration, I've been really enjoying The Dead South recently

I might have had an entire backyard dance choreographed to this song when I was a kid. Maybe. I'm not telling.

In real life, a restaurant can and will kick you out and ban you from the premises for wearing a swastika and saying you think minorities don't deserve to live.

Ergo, being kicked off a company's privately owned server for hate speech is EXACTLY the same amount of freedom they would have in real life.

Everyone loves censorship. Even you.

Yeah isn't this the part of the movie where he gets recruited from jail by James Bond or something? That's literally a plot point in at least one Mission Impossible movie, isn't it? Lol

I'm in Massachusetts and I heat my house primarily with a central electric heat pump and supplemental mini-split heat pump. I do have a natural gas backup just in case, but I haven't needed it this year at all even down to 18⁰F

I'm a nurse in a hospital. We absolutely do NOT consider uninsured people seeking healthcare to be theft.

Would we prefer that people have Medicaid and seek primary care services elsewhere? Of course. So one of the things we do when people come in is get them signed up. Should that be our responsibility? Of course not. But here we are.

Oh, ya. I could work like that, but I need health insurance, sadly.