Or punish exploitative coaches (and governments) by banning their athletes from competition, which might actually make them less attractive as coaches (because being able to win doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t allowed to compete.) And then maybe the safety/health of children and adolescent athletes won’t be…

Well especially when Luke Daniels is reading them.

ha. I think the first book or two his pen name worked relatively well at obscuring his identity from readers at least (of course it would have been impossible to hide it from publishers). When he was younger he maybe didn’t look exactly like him... but after I read fireman I looked him up (like I do sometimes when I…

I don’t think we should pay nurses any less, and they should hire more of them per patient. And the numbers you have are basically correct, but fail to account for the number of hours worked by the two parties (and the massive debt required to become a doctor for most of them).  The hourly wage for that lower paid…

Well... they do work a lot fewer hours now than they did 15 years ago. And 15 years ago they worked fewer hours than they did 25 years ago. And he definitely made less than our state minimum wage, even as a fellow (but not less than federal minimum wage at the time)

Exactly. I don’t think we should try to pay nurses less by any means, Nurses in hospitals are making as much or more (per hour of work) than my husband who is an IM specialist. His group spent the last two years with two fewer doctors than they really need (because it took them that entire time to hire two people) and…

Barry Webb has a way with slime molds.

100%. I have been in the position of choosing which methods I would use to end my life and intervened on behalf of family members in the same situation.

ha... yes. When my kids were little and their teachers would ask me to come talk to their classes and bring insects with me, rather than say I was an entomologist or an insect ecologist I just said I was a bug doctor (inspired by my husband, who is an infectious disease physician calling himself a germ doctor).

Yes, and you can play most of the NYT games for free once a day...which is basically what we had before.

soapy water will also help you drown them.

Eh... I have given up on such distinctions. I’m just happy if people don’t call things whose number of legs != 6 insects.

Japanese beetles are annoying, but they aren’t a particular economic danger, as the lantern flies are. This is partially due to the fact that the feeding mechanisms of lanterflies put plants at risk in two ways (in addition to the physical stress of being fed on): 1. Lantern flies can spread diseases (systemic fungal,…

Ah, yes. Well that case was creation of zoning. Rezoning things does get into the aspect of the government taking (for instance you can’t take land that is zoned for... basically anything and declare it can only be used for farming or for open space conservation... though there is a work around for that).

initial investigation and sign off that they did not have enough to sustain charges at that point in time.

The link above doesn’t work, so I’m providing it below along with a link to a template for a letter to write to your senator.

You are KILLING me

Yes... you live in banana heaven.

The funniest part of this comment to me is that my grandparents lived near (1.5 miles, directly across the river) 3 mile island when it melted down. My grandfather had a plan to retire and travel the country with a trailer for the rest of their active years. My grandmother agreed, on the condition they live in a…

Since the 1600's common law has allowed people to “affirm” rather than swear an oath (ironically, since these are oath keepers). It was an accommodation that allowed for citizens of certain religious groups (such as Quakers) who refused to swear oaths, to serve in government positions. In the modern era many religious…