I normally like the heat, but I am ready for some cooler days. Like 80? With less humidity? That would be nice.

I’m not actually Tampa either, the name thing goes back over 20 years to a different variation of the name. Tampa adjacent though. Hello neighbor! How are you enjoying this insanely humid, soaking wet summer? At least so far we haven’t been hit by a major hurricane!

Well I am in Florida, but not Tampa.

I know you’re not making it up, I’m also thinking you live in my neighborhood. That would actually be preferable to the thought that every neighborhood on Nextdoor is like this.

Yeah, your last sentence pretty much nails it!

Oooh, I wonder if I know where you live; you just described my experience with Nextdoor to a T.

Oh god, THIS.

Wow... That is quite incredible.

Ah yes, our dear friends in The Villages (of the damned).

Things are very divided here. They’d be a little less so were it not for the Republicans who “winter” here and therefore register to vote here so that their votes will “count,” as they would supposedly not in whatever blue state they normally live in. 

The ad definitely referred to landfills, so while I appreciate your attempts to apply the principle of charity to their argument, I doubt they had anything so nuanced as the shedding of microplastics in mind.

If scientists can do lab-grown meat (although they have to get the cost waaay down before it becomes a viable consumer option), they should be able to figure out how to make lab-grown fur. I’m all for both, although I wouldn’t use either. If it reduces animal suffering and environmental degradation, I’m all for it.

While we don’t eat them, the bodies from fur farm are used. They are usually sent to rendering plants where the meat is used to make pet and animal feed, the bones for bonemeal and the fat for everything from manufacturing to cosmetics.

It does, they strip the hides and send them off to be processed into leather. I toured a processing plant a few years ago, it was traumatizing but also very educational.

This is why I’m ok with leather. If it’s an animal we’re going to eat, I feel like we should use up as much of the animal as possible. It feels respectful. To use an animal just for it’s fur has always seemed cruel to me.

That said... I actually don’t know if leather comes from cows that have also been used for meat.…

Saw an ad promoting fur as the environmentally sound choice because real fur decomposes quicker than fake fur in landfills. Is that really the best they’ve got?

You took the meme right out of my mouth.

I avoid leather (as a vegetarian), but isn’t it at least a by-product of the meat industry? If I need to wear/use leather for some reason, I can at least console myself that the animal would have died anyways and as much of it as possible is being used. There’s really no such justification for fur, since even rabbits…

“This is a generational issue. These are companies that wouldn’t even meet with us a decade ago,” Dan Mathews, senior vice president at PETA, told the Wall Street Journal in a July article about fur and leather manufacturing declining in luxury fashion.