Many of the stories were about the name change itself, right? If that’s the case, how can one expect a reader to know who you are talking about, without at least once mentioning the name the person used to be called? Taking the marriage analogy, it seems perfectly fine to say “Jane Doe , who previously went by Jane…

This article is missing a key point: no-cost refinances allow you to refinance again if rates continue to drop (and I suspect they will). I see little reason to pay more today for a lower rate tomorrow.  If you can find a no-cost refi at a lower APR than your current loan, all it costs you is the hassle of paperwork.

Of course, if you lower your interest rate, you can just continue to pay the same amount per month.  You pay the loan off in the same time and save money, to boot.

Earn. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

“An expense ratio up to 1% might be ok if a fund has performed especially well.”

Just buy a mask with head straps rather than ear loops.

You guys missed the big one: Oxyclean! For burn marks and polymerized grease—the nasty semi-clear brown stuff that forms on pans—it’s a miracle worker. Simply add a couple tablespoons, fill the pan with warm water, and let sit for a few hours (or overnight). Rinse away.

Just a heads up: if you mask is uncomfortable due to it pulling at your ears, try a model with straps that go fully around your head.  (Mine are from Proper Cloth, but I’m sure there are others.)  This made all the difference for me so far as comfort.

It’s easy to think that, but it’s not true. Humans have always been tribal, but tribes didn’t think about themselves as “different kinds of humans.” There was a distinct shift around 500 years ago that introduced the modern idea of “race” as being categorically different portions of the human species. More info here: h…

It was. The US didn’t start slavery, but they dominated the market for it. At the height of US slavery, US slaves were worth more than all the railroads and factories in the US, combined. After other western nations abolished slavery, the US invented the “slave-backed mortgage,” creating a financial market for…

I mean, technically it’s okay so long as the attendant takes it and serves it to you. Seems unlikely that they’d want to, for exactly the same reasons the airlines stopped serving alcohol in the first place.

FAA regulations prohibit passengers from drinking alcohol on board the aircraft unless it is served by the air carrier. (Source)

It is prejudice, surely, but I would not describe it as “racism” because, as you say, Slavs are considered “white.” Prejudice in all forms needs to be recognized, but racial prejudice is unique in that it is founded on psuedoscience: the assertion that distinct “races” of humans exist.

Completely agree. Skin color correlates (because the conditions that generate malaria also tend to lead to increased melanin), but it’s a weak correlation at best. No direct relationship: 100% agree.

Social science and medical studies study the world as it is, which inevitably includes race. Anthropologists generally agree that race as a biological fact is pure fiction.

The concept of race as a taxonomy is exactly what I meant by the modern concept of race. However, from a scientific point of view, the concept of race is completely bankrupt. I would classify, for example, the people of the Soloman Islands as “black,” despite them being genetically much closer to people of Asian…

You’re totally correct. This is a European color interpretation. It still predates race.  Refer to the medieval notion of “black magic”--totally disconnected from “black” people.

The “modern concept of race” groups different people into buckets based on physical attributes, rather than simply heredity. It calls people “white,” for example, rather than of “English,” or “German,” or “Scottish” descent. It calls people “black” rather than of “Egyptian” or “Kenyan” descent.

Somewhat similarly, the term “slave” did not originally have racial implications, as it existed before the modern concept of race. It derived from the ethnonym “Slav” (the Indo-European people).

This is interesting, because AFAIK the connotation of “black” being evil and “white” being good far predates the invention of race. So I rather doubt that “whitelist” and “blacklist” were originally intended with any sort of racial implication. (The opposite may be true: those espousing race theory may have selected…