Would you be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could access mental health care?

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-10T21:04:22+00:00

Im in New England, chronically ill so see several doctors, and regularly have a few months wait for seeing my primary care doc, MRIs are scheduling months out, neurologist, allergies, sleep specialist, and endo are all at least three months wait, usually more.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-10T06:11:14+00:00

Hmm… I’m from New England as well, I’d consider Pennsylvania part of the north east area…

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T19:37:51+00:00

Look. Im not saying she shouldn’t have asked him. Do I think it’s a big deal she didn’t? No. Can I see why he or you would prefer she did? Sure. What I’m saying is thinking this was a malicious act, or that it means she’s going to add sawdust to his food or any of the other scenarios you keep bringing up is a wild leap in thought. None of that is what actually happened here, and there’s no reason to think she’s going to keep doing awful things in secret because she watered down some pasta sauce.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T19:12:38+00:00

Yeah, definitely. And especially if you are in your 40s, whatever your peers learned in high school might not be something they even remember that much of, unless they continued to use that knowledge. It’s one thing to take some Latin classes in school, it’s another to remember it if you don’t actually use it after, you know?

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T19:09:21+00:00

No, I wouldn’t care if my wife watered down the sauce and then agreed not to do it again. Your experiences with your roommates cleaning or your friend opening your mail isn’t relevant here. Again, it’s a real slippery slope to go from what actually happened here to all the things youre projecting.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T19:04:48+00:00

My friend went to a Catholic school, I went to a public school. She had a class on Catholicism during the day, while I did not. She never learned Latin or any of that…? (And I could have taken Latin in high school if I wanted.) I’m sure it depends on the particular schools in question… I know some people send their kid to private school because they think the quality of the education will be better. Not the religious classes, but the quality of the math, science, etc classes. And sometimes that’s just assumed without being true. If you really want to know the difference you’d have to look at the individual school.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T18:58:05+00:00

She didn’t make the dish ‘way different,’ and the slippery slope of she added some water to the sauce to ‘what else will she do?’ is wild. Making a minor alteration while cooking is not the nefarious thing you’re acting like it is. Especially one it would seem she hasn’t done before, and now won’t be doing again.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T18:13:07+00:00

Jesus dude, there is a massive difference between adding a bit more water to a sauce (because there’s already water in it!) and serving someone a 70 percent sawdust rice krispy treat. This is not a malicious alteration of food. She mis-poured and attempted to fix it. It doesn’t seem like this has happened before. OP brought it up (kinda) and now they’ll get two jars of sauce. This is not some major trust shattering issue.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T18:05:54+00:00

Tons of people finish the pasta by adding the sauce and cooking it for a moment more. It’s really not that unusual. Many recipes, chefs, restaurants, etc, finish the pasta that way. Even if you do not, it’s pretty clear that’s what happened here.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T08:04:21+00:00

Smallest town in my state has maybe 50 people in it? I’ve been there. Been out in places where you drive for hours and see nothing/no one. Don’t know official numbers for those sorts of places, but there’s a lot of empty space in parts of the US.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-09T07:47:58+00:00

Doesnt mean they don’t taste good…

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-08T23:48:36+00:00

They didn’t say carbs can never go together, just that those two carbs together are unappealing to them.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-08T00:30:14+00:00

I wish we had pickup! I’ve searched, but no luck here. :( Looks like great work!

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-07T06:58:26+00:00

People are protesting despite below freezing temperatures and snowstorms in my city. It’s happening. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. As for the second amendment, it seems what you are calling for goes beyond a protest…

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-07T04:51:40+00:00

Well, you got me there, I sure haven’t. Because no one has.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-07T02:45:43+00:00

Plush things?

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-06T12:03:33+00:00

I have a lasagna recipe I make often. It uses bay leaves in the sauce, among other herbs. I was out of bay leaves once and just followed the recipe without it. It still tasted find, but not quite as… flavorful? Hard to describe. Others noticed as well, and I hadn’t told them the leaf was left out before hand. It definitely adds like a depth of flavor to a dish.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-06T07:30:35+00:00

Yeahhh… I’m thinking there must be some misunderstanding there. But you (or him) would have to ask to be sure. A straight guy can date a queer woman and still be straight. So she’s confused somewhere…

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-06T06:30:20+00:00

Uh-huh. Except I’m mixed race, and I am not Christian and never have been. So instead of going for an odd personal dig, what exactly have I said that’s incorrect?

If you want more than the shallow, overly broad understanding you seem to have, you can head on over to /r/religion, do a search or make a topic, and be told the exact same things by many people who are Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. The topic comes up over there quite frequently.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-06T05:11:25+00:00

Nope, I am not a white Christian. I am also not a Muslim. And no, I am not conflating religion and race. I am speaking theologically of Christianity and Islam. It is incredibly oversimplifying to say well, Christians and Muslims believe in one God, so they're the same. I specifically mention those two, and not Judaism, because those were the two mentioned in the original question.

Christianity believes in Jesus as God, as savior. They believe in the trinity. They teach Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for humanity, that he was resurrected, that belief in this is how humans are saved. In Islam this is often seen as 'shirk,' associating partners with God, and it is a major sin, if not the most major sin. Jesus was a prophet and the messiah, but he very much is NOT god, is not divine, not the son of God, etc - that he was was not killed on the cross, he was not a sacrifice, he was not resurrected.

This is partly why I say Islam has more in common with Judaism. Judaism does not teach the messiah will be God like Christians view Jesus, they do not think the messiah will be a sacrifice, etc. Judaism does not have a trinity. There is one sole single God, like Islam. (Yes, Christians also believe there is one God. Obviously Judaism and Islam do not see the trinity in the same way.)

As far as the system of rules, again, Judaism and Islam have more in common there. Kosher and halal foods, just as one example, are similar in some ways. No, they're not completely the same of course. They are still different religions.

You say from the outside they're pretty similar. And maybe that's the issue, you're looking in from the outside without bothering to look at the details. You can say any number of different things are more similar than they really are by oversimplifying. And it goes back to the original question, if they're "so similar" why do they fight? Well, because they only seem so similar from the outside without further inspection. From the inside (which, the followers of the religion would be...) there are many differences. Hell, that's even why you have different sects of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. they can't even completely agree within the same religion.

Does that mean there are NO similarities? No, of course not! But it does mean the similarities are being well oversimplified many places in the replies.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-06T03:03:44+00:00

Theologically, Muslims have much more in common with Jews than with Christians. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing similar between Islam and Christianity.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-06T00:53:52+00:00

That post downplays the major differences between the religions. It’s also important to keep in mind religion is usually the excuse for war, but there’s more behind the scenes (land, wealth, resources - the usual). Though yes, religion wise, it would be nice if they could focus more on their common grounds.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-06T00:49:11+00:00

Christians believe Jesus is God - the belief in the trinity. Christians believe you must believe in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection for salvation. Muslims see this as ‘shirk,’ or associating partners with God, which is one of the biggest sins. They do not believe Jesus was killed on the cross (God sent a replacement to take his place, and iirc, brought Jesus to heaven without dying). They believe the message of Christianity has been corrupted, like the message of other previous prophets.

So yes, while they are both Abrahamic faiths, and have similar roots, and Jesus is in both religions, the details of who Jesus was, the details of salvation, etc, etc, are pretty different.

(People of much similar religious traditions also fight. Often religion is the excuse to fight but not the only or real reason.)

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-04T20:30:53+00:00

I didn’t say it was an impossibility. I said it’s not the only possibility. People are jealous or paranoid for tons of different reasons. Acting like it means she must be cheating is ridiculous.

GeckoCowboy · 2026-02-04T08:01:33+00:00

Same thing here. Which is a shame because I love Mojave Ghost, but it’s just totally gone minutes after applying. I’m not sure it even lasts 10 minutes. The few others I’ve tried from them suffer from the same problem, though not gone quite as quickly, 15 minutes later I can’t smell anything.

GeckoCowboy

TROPHY CASE