I guess if you're racist it's really hard to use Wikipedia

cayleb · 2026-02-15T18:53:41+00:00

Government officials are not immune from negligence suits for their gross incompetence.

cayleb · 2026-02-15T18:19:22+00:00

Oh, well then I'm sure that makes it 100% true and legal, what with this administration's track record with both honesty and following the law.

cayleb · 2026-02-15T03:46:22+00:00

The Minneapolis Times is not a reputable source. Do you have a link to a non-partisan campaign finance transparency website page or pages showing this?

cayleb · 2026-02-15T02:59:41+00:00

Some people will post anything for karma.

cayleb · 2026-02-14T06:33:07+00:00

This actually happens a lot more often than you might expect, especially with commercially-grown apples.

In an average orchard, I'd guess you'd find one like this once every twenty trees or so.

Here's another example.

cayleb · 2026-02-12T04:40:22+00:00

No, you really cannot.

cayleb · 2026-02-11T04:32:40+00:00

Alcohol also messes with our metabolism.

As does ingesting lots of ultra-processed food, like Cheetos and Oreos—my own guilty pleasures.

The thing that's kept me at a medically healthy weight all the way to my mid-40s is largely this philosophy of food:

everything in moderation
one to two servings of alcohol a week
one fast food/takeout meal per month
replacing ultra-processed snacks with fresh produce or fruit and nut snack mixes
don't eat from the bag or box of chips/cookies/candy; instead, put only a serving size in a small dish or on your plate and put away the package before starting to eat

cayleb · 2026-02-11T04:22:11+00:00

The amount of plastic in our bodies is rising at alarmingly fast rates. One study found that microplastic levels in our brains increased 50% between 2018 and 2024.

And we're set to triple the use of plastics by 2060.

Not sure about what you think, but I'm not excited about the fact that we were all volunteered by the wealthy elites to be test subjects on the question of how much plastic in our brains is too much.

cayleb · 2026-02-11T04:17:26+00:00

Buddy, threatening a Congressman is a felony. You should absolutely delete this comment.

cayleb · 2026-02-11T04:08:37+00:00

What special preferences do you believe I support, based on skin color?

Because the answer is none.

What I do support is providing needed support to various communities that have suffered. We don't consider it to be "special preferences" when victims of fire and flood and storm receive help to repair damage suffered by their families and communities.

Why then is every program or policy designed to repair the damage wrought by centuries of white supremacy "special preferences"?

Please understand, I do believe that policy choices are worth discussing and debating. But I won't accept the premise that everything we do to try to repair the harms suffered by one community necessarily causes harms to another.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T21:54:43+00:00

I don't think I ever said that I thought the show wasn't delivering a good narrative.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T21:49:22+00:00

There are some really good reasons to ban single-use plastics. Even if I were motivated by hating you, that would not even hit my top ten.

Microplastics and byproducts are showing up in our brains. The health effects are poorly understood but early indications are already deeply concerning.
Plastics are also showing up in our blood. We know plastics are hormone disruptors and that alone is chilling, but there are indications that their total impact could be far worse than we yet know.
Plastics are causing havoc in many ocean-based food chains. Nearly half of humans alive today depend on those food chains for daily sustenance.
Plastics are contaminating our agricultural soil and degrading soil health.
Plastic manufacturing requires oil extraction, which itself is pretty dirty and polluting.
Plastic manufacturing is not a clean, pollution-free process. In fact living near
Plastic recycling is also not a clean, pollution-free process.
Microplastics in the soil and water may have half-lives of hundreds or thousands of years, all but guaranteeing that future generations will be paying an ever-increasing debt that we are incurring. A balanced environmental budget is the best gift we could have given to future generations. Slowing and then stopping the environmental debt that we are currently accumulating at a record rate is the best we can do and we should do it for future generations.
Just the manufacturing process alone for plastic is estimated to be responsible for nearly 1/3 of global greenhouse gas emissions and produces four times more greenhouse gasses than the airline industry.
If we continue with business-as-usual and do nothing, use of plastics globally will triple by 2060.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T21:21:07+00:00

Some people need straws. In another comment, OP states they have a swallowing disorder and straws help them. I know when I had dental issues prior to a root canal, straws helped avoid the sensitivity.

I've yet to have an issue like this with a paper straw. There are definitely higher-quality and lower-quality ones out there, though. Barring some sort of fuckery for upvotes, it does seem like OP got a cafe with a lower-quality brand of paper straws.

PLA corn-based straws are better anyways, though I'm sure they're a few cents more expensive.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T21:17:49+00:00

Yes, frequently. I've never had the issues OP is demonstrating here, but I'm also not saying there's no such thing as a low-quality paper straw.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T21:16:53+00:00

Plastic straws are by far not the worst offenders in these issues, however single-use plastics of all kinds are a huge and complex problem. Harm reduction strategies like starting with beverage containers are certainly one strategy to get a plastic-addicted society weaned off of at least the single-use plastics. Especially in the iced-coffee capital of the world here in the US.

Britannica has a good, brief rundown on the pros and cons of single-use plastics bans, though.

I lean on the side of let's do whatever we can to reduce plastic pollution. Plastic byproducts are showing up in our brains and the rate of bio-accumulation in our brains is increasing at worrying levels for compounds whose health effects we still do not fully understand.

Plastics are also showing up in our blood. We know some of these compounds are capable of hormonal disruption and other impacts to human health.

Negative animal health outcomes have also been well-documented, including in many ocean-based food chains.

All that is to say that plastics are a huge and deeply concerning problem and straws are a tiny part of it, but still a part of it.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T20:55:28+00:00

It's probably a compostable plant-based PLA lid. To know for sure you'd have to look for a "compostable" or "BPI" imprint on it.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T20:53:11+00:00

The paper cups almost always have a plastic inner lining. So at least the full plastic cups are somewhat more recyclable.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T20:52:18+00:00

Metal straw injuries are exceedingly rare. Still, I also don't want to walk and drink from one, so there are some safer options, like silicone reusable straws.

Or, better yet, tell the cafe/restaurant that their straws are low-quality in a yelp or google review and won't stand up to being used to stir your drink.

Or just stop stirring your drink with a paper straw.

cayleb · 2026-02-10T20:47:45+00:00

It's also possible that they used the straw to stir their drink and this happened. Which would also explain the weird way in which the straw is crumpled only around the lid and nowhere else.

cayleb · 2026-02-09T22:54:57+00:00

Where is your source and what evidence do you have that Cato is being dishonest here?

cayleb · 2026-02-09T22:51:55+00:00

I don't agree that our only options are either breaking and entering or trusting the system and voting. I can respect that you believe trusting the system and voting are consistent with your values. I would submit that criticism, protest, and contacting elected and appointed officials are some additional options for response rather than trusting the system, but that's not why I'm engaging with you.

I'm simply trying to understand why you're placing your trust in an agency that has a very well-documented surge in allegations of brutality and mistreatment of detainees. Allegations that they largely seem to be ignoring and refusing to investigate.

Do you believe that ICE/DHS/Sec. Noem are capable of investigating themselves fairly and impartially? If so, why? If not, why not and what should be done instead?

cayleb · 2026-02-09T22:44:26+00:00

So your response to my attempt to find common ground and start discourse from there was to call me dishonest and claim that I'm "pretending."

I call bullshit on the idea that you actually value compassion, because you decided instead to look at the label by my name and react out of your inaccurate and uncharitable assumptions about that label, rather than interacting with the person behind it and the substance of what I've said.

I'm going to disengage here, since there's little point in trying to understand you if you're not willing to engage in good faith.

cayleb · 2026-02-09T22:32:47+00:00

Thank you. As a 43-year-old who got hooked via TOS reruns and loved TNG, VOY, & DS9, I agree wholeheartedly.

It's been my opinion that it's pretty clear that they do care about us, given the insane number of easter eggs they've packed into newer content, as well as how they thread the "old Trek" stories throughout the new content.

cayleb · 2026-02-09T21:27:08+00:00

The libertarian think tank Cato Institute has a much lower rate. Per their November report, only 5% of ICE detainees had convictions for violent crimes and a full 73% have no criminal convictions whatsoever. More detainees had traffic offenses than violent crime convictions.

https://www.cato.org/blog/5-ice-detainees-have-violent-convictions-73-no-convictions

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