I suspect coal country in Kentucky, WV and rural PA and Virginia and the western plains in Nebraska and Kansas, which are already severely stressed with population loss, will see some real ghost towns soon. Especially if the Ogallala aquifer dries up in the latter case.

I need to get around to trying the Pern books. My mom was a big fan and had all or nearly all of them.

Ho, dankon! Mi certe iam kontrolos tion, kiam mi havos sufiĉa da tempon.

Esperanto, very slowly, using Duolingo. Why? Just because.

Since you said “house” I’m going to push back a little bit. Housing is unaffordable and we should address it but single-family homes are not a feasible solution for a lot of places and situations.

Definitely one of the fastest way to start arguments, especially among people left-of-center.

They are using it in a different sense. Not that they are considered luxury goods by being expensive and associated with higher socioeconomic standing, but that they are a frivolity which is not necessary and which has tangible costs that they feel are justified due to pure pleasure.

“3-way handshake” does sound pretty lewd in context doesn’t it

If it’s a word that suddenly exploded in popularity in text media recently I would suppose it is one of some LLM’s favorite uncommon words. See the rise of the word ‘delve’ in scientific papers for an example of this sort of trend.

It’s disappointing that this funding is coming from regressive sources (gas tax, registration fees, payroll taxes) rather than from the state income tax, since I doubt most working poor in Oregon have the luxury of choosing a car-free work situation (can’t work near public transit or can’t live near public transit or both or perhaps it is possible but the commute is not useful for shift work). But at least they didn’t have to cut funding for other state services I guess?

Since it hasn’t been mentioned, one thing that I am truly thankful for that we have improved since the 1990s is public smoking. Not having to be prepared for the reek of cigarettes in virtually every public space is such a big win.

Hell, in 1990, which is 35 years ago, you could still smoke on airplanes in the US. Airplanes! Can you imagine flying back then? Your neighbor could light up and there was nothing you could do but sit there and stew in the smoke stream. I’m glad I never had to experience flying with smoke but I had my fair share of being forced to sit in smoking sections of restaurants until my teenage years.