YES.

Laparoscopy is SO COOL. Had my appendix out that way. Just seeing what an appendectomy scar looks like for someone who got it done laparoscopically versus the old-fasioned way is pretty illuminating.

Dear god, 34 months, that must be some kind of record!

And even then, I think the opposition to government jobs is only partly about whatever small-government libertarian ideology they have. The rest isn’t about government jobs, per se, but any jobs at all that don’t serve to line the pockets of their campaign funders.

My first thought was: “Faith Saile from Wait! Wait!!?!??! YEAS.”

Salting food properly is the difference between food that’s meh and food that’s spectacular. I’ve heard that the biggest difference between restaurant food and home-cooked food is the amount of salt (and butter). Of course, you don’t want to cook yourself into a heart attack, but using enough salt is the key to tasty…

I have many childhood memories of my mother screaming “COOKING IS TIMING!” at me while I “helped” her cook. She was totally right. Unless you’re really incompetent in the kitchen and can’t, like, chop an onion or cook an egg right, it pretty much all comes down to timing, even when you’re only making one thing at a…

There’s a wing place near where I live with like a million different flavors. One of them is called “Hot In, Hot Out.” Not brave enough to try it.

I dunno, I think having one well-known example of a trans person in the wider public consciousness is better than none. (Just thinking about what it means, for example, to trans kids who are being raised in places where that’s not really an accepted thing, but who still can see the example of Caitlyn Jenner and know…

Yeah. Or like, criticize her for being a clueless Republican, but don’t imply that being trans is relevant to someone’s moral character. Milo Yiannopolous is gay. Ann Coulter is a woman. Y’know?

Yeah, I think most people with any clue were wary from the start. But that’s not really relevant. Whether or not she’s the spokesperson anyone would have voluntarily chosen, she’s still undeniably one of the most visible trans people out there, and when our broader society is still, for the most part, very new to the…

No worries at all! (And yeah, I think if she IS evolving ... it seems to be awfully slow. Here’s hoping, I guess.)

Yup.

No, that’s what I mean! I would imagine that, of course, that kind of experience wouldn’t be unusual. And I’m saying that I just hope that Jenner has a similar awakening and is evolving in her worldview as she settles into her identity.

You literally put “courage” in condescending quotation marks. Hardly anyone “defended her without question” the way you’re suggesting. Defending her right to basic respect is not the same thing as defending her character.

Recognizing Caitlyn Jenner’s role in gaining more widespread visibility for trans issues is really not the same thing as judging her to be a good person. It takes an especially small-minded person to think that people who (for example) defending Jenner’s right to be called by her proper pronouns are defending her…

She should be shown respect, and she should not be misgendered, and it does indeed take courage to come out (especially as a public figure). Those things are still true. She can both be criticized for her bigoted/ignorant views and also be given basic human respect—those things are not mutually exclusive.

I have to hope that she’s still evolving. Similar to how this trans woman described her experience (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/style/modern-love-jennifer-finney-boylan.html):

I believe this counts as what Lindy West calls “Schroedinger’s joke,” wherein a person says something bigoted, and then decides whether it was a joke depending on how it’s received.

Nobody’s saying it’s a free lunch.  And you have to be a fucking moron if you think that “costs don’t decrease when government controls something.” In many cases, it does. And according to just about everyone who actually knows what they’re talking about, the cost of healthcare—the total cost—would go down with a…