In re: TERFs, transgender people make up a very small part of the general population, roughly .5%. The odds that any given TERF would get picked up by an UBER driver that is a transwoman are very low.

I suspect–and I’d need to be checked on this–that you would need to have gotten your gender marker changed on your driver’s license in order for Uber to correctly identify your gender. And that makes it an even smaller subset of trangender people that could trigger TERFs. OTOH, I could absolutely see a TERF going ballistic over a cisgender woman that wasn’t fully gender-conforming…

The good news is that, relatively speaking, a water heater isn’t too expensive, and you can usually do it on your own without too much trouble. Assuming that you’re moderately handy. Roofs are… A different matter. Depending on your roof type, pitch, and geographic location, it can either be fairly easy, or require a high degree of expertise.

Go to an actual archery store to get fitted and try some out; read reviews in Bowhunter magazine. A lot of the differences are pretty marginal for new users. Current bows have a pretty amazing drop-off rate, which makes it very easy to hold at full-draw. But you do need upper body strength the get to the drop-off point.

If you’re talking real, serious, the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it apocalypse, then I’d recommend getting either a fiberglass recurve bow in the 80#+ range and a few spare strings, or a Mossberg Shockwave and a single shell. The fiberglass recurve bow will be difficult to learn to shoot effectively, but it essentially maintenance-free. The Mossberg will prevent you from having to learn to use the bow effectively.

I have a very strong preference to the silicone triple-flange ear tips. They help block outside noise and fit comfortably. Unfortunately, they also don’t work with many ear buds. Shure is one of the few brands that they work with for certain.

Wut.

Susan Collins IS NOT A DEMOCRAT. She is a REPUBLICAN. I don’t mean that she’s a DINO, she’s literally a Republican.

I live in Maine. Every week I get email alerts telling me where Platner is going to be, and what I can do to help. (I’m currently doing huge amounts of OT, so I don’t have the time to volunteer.) He’s doing town halls weekly (I think that he’s doing Millinocket soon; I should be able to make that one), and constantly doing outreach. I see his campaign posts on Bluesky all the time. He came to a town near me, a town with a whopping 6000 residents, and treated everyone respectfully, including the MAGAt that was there trying to poke holes in his campaign.

I have seen ONE Bluesky post from Mills’ campaign. AFAIK, she’s done exactly zero town hall meetings, certainly not ones where she’s taking questions directly from the audience. I haven’t seen any campaign signs, no radios ads (altho I only listen to Maine Public Radio; but I also haven’t heard anything about her campaign there), and I’ve seen Collins’ ads on the TVs at the gym, but nothing for Mills.

So I don’t fucking know where Mills is spending the money that she has.

The fact that the cancelled in the face of public pressure means nothing; they can always resume the partnership once the pressure subsides.

10% is pretty close to a controlling interest, since many shares never vote at meetings.

Ask them if they’ve read Ammon Bundy’s piece about immigration, and ask them what they think of it. Keep in mind that Bundy is pretty far right in almost every way, but almost all of his right-wing militia buddies have abandoned him on this.

IMO he’s arrived at the right conclusion, but his reasons–because god–are nonsense. It’s going to be interesting to see how his worldview changes as he realizes that most of the people that he thought were True Believers like him were only allies of convenience.

In my job, I need to use materials that have a mil spec; that means it’s literally military grade, but it’s just saying that it meets or exceeds a certain specification for X product that is used in the military in some way. IMO, if something says ‘military grade’, but isn’t listing the mil spec(s) that it complies to, then it’s essentially meaningless.