TheGoddessAnoia

Don't know about anyone else, but I was thinking they are an excellent, versatile and easily prepared protein source, dense with nutrients, which does not involve the taking of a life.

Edit: I'd been thinking of dumping social media entirely, due to the discouraging number of trolls, self-righteous moralists, snarks and ideologues, but thought it would be reddit that went -- it really has become depressing to consider the future if redditors are indicative. Guess it's not just reddit, mmm?

For the amusement of folk jumping to firm conclusions, I have raised chickens, lived on the Indian subcontinent (and you left out the fate of the Eid cows among Muslims -- the streets run with blood), eat a lot of beans, and will remember in future that it is wisest to stick to my own company rather than set off people who don't think I know how to use a search engine.

Tata.

I wonder, does this woman realise that, should it come to war, or even border skirmishes à la India-China/India-Pakistan, the chances are good an angry patriot will come gunning for her? No, I'm not advocating that, but I am listening to people around me who are very close to the edge, and live not too far from Edmonton, and have guns.

I would really prefer to just buy Canadian. The preliminary thought makes me nauseous to the point of hurling yesterday's breakfast!

I'd be even happier to get it out of the sky entirely. Even if no one in Canada uses it, what's to say those satellites don't have the capacity to capture our communications, photograph our cities, farms, bases, and even more, and feed it directly to someone who would sell it to the highest bidder without a thought?

Um... no. Having been an adult in the 1970s, I can testify that people read a great deal more then than they do now, and among the things they read were such optimistic tomes as 1984, I Am Legend, The Death of Grass, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or anything else by Philip K. Dick, The Egghead Republic, anything by Kurt Vonnegut, Silent Spring, the works of Harlan Ellison, and I could go on. Problem was then what it is now: corporations can pay for and broadcast lies faster and louder than a whole lot of worried people can yell and point and warn*. Don't be fooled by selective hindsight: there were a whole lot of people getting pretty nervous, even in the 1970s, and being told we were worrying needlessly because history could only move one way....

*To quote Jonathan Swift (the probable originator of the idea that Terry Pratchett brought to Millennials) " Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it." (1710)

Don't forget the feuds between pickleball players and the residents around the parks/clubs that have converted to it, or set aside hours for pickleball players. It is the most annoying sound, a loud POCK -- POCK -- POCK --POCK... all frigging DAY.... AAARRRRGGGGG!

So, of an estimated 348 million Americans, roughly 3 million, less than 1%, please note, work for the US federal government directly (the Armed Forces are a separate matter and a separate budget). Of those, DOGE has managed to lay off slightly over 2%, while spending 14.4 million dollars on its own operations in just the period of time between January 30 and February 8: after that, no figures have been released.

Why do I keep hearing my Mom's voice muttering Penny wise, pound foolish?

You and me both. Carney is Progressive Conservative, whether that party still exists or not. And, yes, if I must, I must, although I've had it up to here with having to vote for a party I dislike just because the only other viable option is so much worse. There are days I shed a tear, even now, for Jack Layton: he was no more than mildly left, but, damn! I wish he'd had his chance!

I lived for some time in a Muslim culture country. It was officially secular: about 30% of women wore western clothes, with or without head coverings, others wore a sari (a proportion of the population was Hindu), still others wore the shalwar kameez, some were in hijabs, with or without abaya, some in chadors, or niqabs, some chose the burqa. I wore the hijab because it protected me from the sun. I was part of many discussions: the pious wanted us all in burqa, others had arguments for their choices, and the non-religious demanded I take off my hijab because I was encouraging oppression, yet many of the women I knew who wore hijab were not even remotely religious: it was just their take on their culture.

I don't care, one way or the other, about religion or the French fixation on anti-clericalism/secularism, but I do care about women making their own choices in a democracy. I am not sure how the francophone fixation on banning religious symbols, whatever the religion, sits with that. I wonder, too, did the almost universally male anti-clericals of the 19th and 20th century ever bother to ask a woman for her opinion?

Nope. Snotty, expensive and barely worth shopping at when there was a major sale. It lasted twice as long as the East India Company (more or less) and will be remembered in history books, to which I am glad to see it consigned.

Every now and then, I sit back in wonder: when I was born, DNA had only recently been confirmed as the 'carrier' of heredity (it is, as always with science, much more complicated than that), and we hadn't yet isolated the bases or realised that it varied from one species to the next. We were clueless about the double helix, RNA, enzymes, ribosomes.... I have been incredibly fortunate to live when I have, especially as it rather looks like the pursuit of knowledge is about to take a firm backseat to the exercise by money of absolute power. Thanks to all those people who gave a lifetime to slowly answering so many of an old woman's questions.

Edit: Except Richard Feynman, who was a misogynistic, self-centred jerk. You got your rewards in life, bub: may you spend all eternity surrounded by grad students who have never heard of Feyman diagrams and hate the bongo drums.

I've been working out at home since the late '70s/early '80s, as I found gyms in that era seriously woman-unfriendly. I splurged for a simple bench, a barbell/dumbbell set, a cheap area rug and a book by Arnold Schwarzenegger on workouts for women. At my peak, I was pressing 130% of my body weight, and able to bring my head down to my knees without fracturing a vertebra. Nowadays, my aim is to be able to carry my own groceries 9 blocks home, chase the cat up the stairs and down the hall when it's time for his meds, and defend my wallet as needed.

I prefer this. It allows me to focus, protects me from dorks who think I need their advice or should surrender the machine I'm on because they need it, saves $75-100 a year in membership fees, the cost of 'proper' gym clothes, the time and money travelling and I can work out when it fits into my day. I recommend it, but you will need a level of self-discipline and a daily routine that works for you. Don't just buy the weights and start flinging them around: find a good book or two/a couple of websites and learn about basic nutrition needs, the best times for exercising, and why you need to cycle your exercises and take a day off regularly.

Don't be discouraged if it takes a while to get into it, and see results. If you miss some time, just go back to it when you can. I can't explain how good it feels every day, being fit, but it is worth it!