@Steve-Miller Wish that were surprising. Got a letter from a company offering to lease farmland to solar panel use. The letter's wording reeked of fraud and the $$ offered what cheap. Tossed it.

Yeah, but have you read the sequels? There’s merch too.

Now I have a taste for Cheetos....

Thank you, everyone! Yes, it's a blessing to have my brother back in my life and I won't lie. I'm looking forward to having an car again.

What a great story! Thanks!

@pique - Too funny. Is there anyone watching us here? Good question. I looked at the admin forum dashboard and I do see some statistics for forum page views, and one of the categories is Bot Page Views. Not sure exactly what that represents and how it compares to the number of Guests on groupee. Maybe @Axtremus can fill us in on how this works, and whether we can opt out of being a source for AI training if we choose. Though as @Big_Al said, maybe we'd be contributing something of value to AI.

Yak Traks vs. micro-spikes https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/ztxbjz/yak_trax_or_micro_spikes/

@AdagioM said in An Interesting Article About Health Insurance ...: The proliferation of assisted living/memory care centers makes me nuts. Yes, we need a way to care for our elders. But it feels like the centers are in it for the money, not about the care. Exactly. And it seems like the nice ones are super, super expensive... We're trying to figure out a way to have my mother move to our new town, and I was hoping maybe she could move into one of those mixed communities that have independent living apartments and assisted apartments in the same complex. It would be nice if she could start in an independent one and have the option to move into assisted if needed... But I don't know... and she's not keen to "live with a bunch of old people" as she put it! She's 80, for the record.

@wtg Interesting, and thanks for doing the research for me! I am now eating a toasted bagel for dinner (it was refrigerated, not frozen, alas). Commercial, but fresh, so hopefully without the grocery store preservatives that might interfere with resistant starch.

@Bernard - I've been catching up a bit, reading other sources including what I think is the NYT article you mentioned. I see that people are talking about studies that seem to demonstrate that low to moderate alcohol consumption may be associated with positive health outcomes in some respects (cardiovascular in particular). In the other camp are the studies that seem to show an association with cancer. And of course the liquor industry is weighing in on everything because of its financial interest. All of this made me think about the history of smoking and how things rolled out. Two Surgeons General, Leroy Burney in 1957, and Luther Terry in 1964, made headlines with their annoucements about the links between smoking and health. Some background, if you're so inclined... https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2014/01/10/smoking-in-america-50-years-on/ https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/surgeon-generals-1964-report-making-smoking-history-201401106970 Getting back to the alcohol debate... My choice is easy. I'm someone who simply can no longer tolerate alcohol, so I don't consume it anymore because it makes me feel like carp within minutes. But you can bet your bottom dollar that if it didn't have that effect on me, I'd be having an occasional tipple myself. For the rest of the country, I suspect the debate will go on for decades like smoking did. Cheers!

Link to video Interesting comments on the Arab Empire. The link works.

Link to video This is what you get when an intelligent, knowledgeable, talented, fearless person goes up against a stupid, disingenuous clown.

The first salvo in the long-running series of battles we can expect to overturn regulations based on the Loper Bright decision. Striking down the FCC regulations on net neutrality is only a glimpse of what we are in for. Expect challenges in almost every area of life where federal agencies promulgate detailed regulations. Big Al

@pique said in Christmas tree?: I usually leave the christmas decor up until we get longer daylight hours. It is very dark here, and the lights alleviate that. I can imagine! I love the soft white Christmas lights, they make everything feel twinkly and warm. @Bernard and @AdagioM Jan. 6th is always my take-down day, but this year the 6th is a Monday and I have a ton of meetings on that day -_- so I planned to undecorate early this year. If we had outdoor lights, I’d want them out longer. @RealPlayer want do you mean by “real parlor grand”? Is that a length thing, or something else? Maybe I should just call mine a “dining room grand” since it’s in the room that’s supposed to be the dining room.

His story is pretty tragic. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-cybertruck-bombing-matthew-livelsberger-letter-mental-health-crisis/ While the photo with the Musk/Trump caption is funny in one respect, I'm regretting a bit that I posted it because after reading his story I can't stop thinking of him dying in the vehicle. :

I stand corrected. The spelling is quatrefoil.

I would feel claustrophobic.

Let's see... Trump owned by Russia and Musk owned by China... what could go wrong??