Apparently gender identity protections are really lacking in San Francisco and California - it’s on par with Moscow, Russia. (No explanation given).

Playing around on it, you realize that actually only a few places are really “rated” - so while Columbus might have a rating, those little river towns you’re talking about are probably being lumped into the statewide rating for Ohio. That’s compounded by the fact that the statewide or nationwide ratings are apparently…

Boy, this isn’t well-designed. I looked around the website and couldn’t find any of the underlying data being used, or even any other data for each of the six categories other than... the length of the stripe. Which somehow spits out a number.

I think this is an honest fuck up, or entirely a hoax. If I got something like this, from a giant company like Vistaprint (which has no apparent religious discrimination problems or beliefs), the first thing I’d do is call them up and be like “Yo, I got the wrong order, and it’s kind of offensive”. Filing a lawsuit…

My husband and I ordered a bunch of stuff from Vistaprint for our (gay) wedding. No issues at all - it was fast, inexpensive, and high quality. I always took them to be an international, internet-based print company (looks like they are Dutch headquartered) that probably has so many tens of thousands of orders a day,…

Yeah this seems very strange and I have a hard time understanding how this happened - Vistaprint is a huge company, it’s not like a corner printshop where a bible-thumping owner might have a bone to pick. And even if a disgruntled employee came across what look like wedding programs - which I’m sure they print…

I don’t think anybody really wants a national ID card, we’re just saying that one is available (a passport card) if you want it, and the social security card isn’t it. But you can, in theory, get along fine as a U.S. citizen, getting jobs and never leaving the country, with a freely-issued birth certificate and/or…

Yes, a passport book is $135. But you could also get a passport card, which meets all federal ID requirements for both citizenship and identity verification, plus lets you cross land borders with Canada and Mexico, for just $55.

I’m not sure what you’re ranting about, but while SSN cards are not supposed to be used for primary identification for government purposes, they are (by definition) proof that you have a social security number, which can be then further used to confirm your identity.

Social Security cards have lots of security features, at least now. I myself got a replacement several years ago, since my parents had scribbled stuff all over mine for no apparent reason, and it wasn’t looking good for getting jobs anymore.

Probably for the same reason you wouldn’t laminate money or other “secure” paper documents - it makes it hard or impossible to examine the security features embedded in it.

Sure. But this sounds like a widely unpopular policy in the neighborhood. If everybody (or nearly everybody) gets fines issued for it, then it will quickly change, or the HOA board members supporting it will get swifly canned.

It’s not illegal for HOAs to declare ridiculous, stupid rules. But enforcing them in court is another matter. An HOA could also say they want you to keep your front door and all windows open at all times because they would like to see you naked from the street. Doesn’t mean that you should do it, or that it would hold…

You don’t have the strain of flu that you were vaccinated against. Or you don’t have the flu at all, but any number of other viruses that go around in the winter.

Here’s the truth: everybody who outwardly pretends to have a principled or conspiratorial objection to flu shots, as if they are operating on some insider knowledge about epidmiology and virology, is, in reality, just a pussy who never grew out of their childhood fear of needles.

The Germanwings pilot didn’t do much “piloting” at all. He crashed by simply setting the autopilot to descend, automatically, to 100 feet. They dropped from cursing altitude into the side of a French mountain all in about 10 minutes... while the other pilot was yelling and banging on the door, and the passengers were…

Yeah but most of us Americans don’t even have passports, and the *vast* majority of Americans think of their drivers license as their one and only ID card. Followed by a close second by their hunting license. Passports barely register, and Americans almost never travel overseas, so sending one off for weeks at a time…

Yes you can mail it, and that’s how most people who pay attention to their passport expiration dates and don’t cut things close do it.

Yes. Depending on the aircraft and the equipment available up front, you’ll sometimes also see a little gate or fence thing close forward of the cockpit door, so they can access the lavatory. On smaller aircraft, the FAs might just stand there facing down the aisle while the pilots enter and exit.

Planes with secure cockpit doors also have keypads on the outside. The pilot can enter a code, and then there’s a short time period (like 30 seconds) where anyone inside the cockpit can override the code and prevent entry. If nobody overrides, then the door unlocks. Normally, of course, the pilot or crew can just pick…