The last 50 years is certainly when “American greatness” started slowly circling the drain. Not that I think America is collapsing or anything but goodness knows we got some great things accomplished at home and abroad right up until about 1970. It’s just been energy shocks and mismanaged wars and presidential…

Thank goodness there has been such an increase in trans visibility over the past 5-10 years, can you imagine if Caitlyn Jenner were one of the only trans celebrities?

Alternately, you could rent a house (as I do) and not have to deal with very many of those drawbacks.

This may be a silly question but how did you judge the comments to be awful? All of the NY Times picks and the reader picks are supportive and emotional, and I trolled through the chronological comments a little and didn’t see anything negative at all. The NY Times comment feature is so bizarre that I find it…

I GOT THE REFERENCE IMMEDIATELY please do not worry about these philistines. Signed, someone with a bachelor’s degree in english lit 

I’m genuinely surprised anybody on the editorial board of this journal thought they’d be able to get away with this. Like, people actually do read the citations and interrogate the sources when things get published in “name” journals ESPECIALLY when the conclusions are controversial. How did they not know ahead of…

Not sure what you mean. Uncontrolled wildfires are an existential threat to the polity and citizenry of California and its ongoing status as a functioning government. Multiple towns in California have been largely destroyed and a broad swath of its people no longer consider it safe or practical to live in wide…

I have been steadily putting money in an index fund for 10+ years and I am more or less satisfied with how it’s been working out.

Yeah that’s been the story as long as I lived in NJ. Even in the 90s, people were tearing down incredibly beautiful older homes and replacing them with god awful stuff, especially near the beach. We used to joke, driving along the ocean, that all these people imagined that they live in the Isle of Capri or in Santa…

I dunno, there are some overhead shots on zillow that make the overall form look pretty revolting too, particularly all the horrible dead zones all around the building and the tentacle-like balustrades and walls

TO BE FAIR he seemed like he had been a good mayor (if you didn’t scratch the surface too vigorously) and it took several more years past 2008 for him to really . . . reveal himself.

Don’t count the second generation out so quickly when it comes to killing the business. 

The exterior is no prize pig either. How many different types/orientations/shapes/colors of stonework (and brick too!) can you possibly combine all at one time. I grew up in this neck of the woods and it does not look like the general taste level of my home county has improved since I left.

One holiday I decided to just bake a ton of complicated (i.e. minimally “impressive” looking) christmas cookies, put 6-8 each in about 30 little gift boxes, and gave them to everyone in my family. It had the benefit of “I made this for you!” without being all that stressful or horrifying. I can imagine if I had…

And as we already see, they will try to argue that it’s a way to track and improve the odds for “at risk” kids so therefore it’s actually GOOD that they are doing this.

I really do see this situation (and at least 50% of the weirdest goings on among Qanon supporters) as examples of how the USA does not know how to deal with its mentally ill citizens.

It’s almost like its . . . ALL . . .projection . . . 

Wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t all vote in lockstep and in such numbers, then perhaps we would be free to say “fuck them” and not have to worry about the consequences

Yeah and the human race only had to surrender about 300 million people 

Luckily you can’t inherit debt! A better question is, who wants to inherit a ownership interest in a bunch of businesses that are poorly performing and overleveraged