I feel like George R.R. Martin was doing that with incest. Starts out with shocking incest between twins, and then spend a bunch of books getting you used to the idea until you find yourself reluctantly cheering for a dude hooking up with his aunt.

I had thought the recent understanding was they were likely small wings, like emus or ostriches, to help with balance. Angled back instead of forward.

Okay, but pop-tarts are raviolis, not sandwiches. That doesn’t even make sense. What kind of sandwich is enclosed on all sides?

I got pepper sprayed in the military. In order to be allowed to wear pepper spray on our belts (for law enforcement), we had to be pepper sprayed and fight someone off.

I found it strange, because it’s not like we had to know what it was like to be shot and fight back. It was also one of the worst experiences of my life. Getting accidentally splashed across the eyes with hot sauce ended up not so bad simply by comparison, so I had that going for me.

I think you’re misunderstanding the statement. He counts, among his three kids, a trans son. As in, among his three kids he has a trans son. If two of his kids were trans, He would count two trans sons among his three kids. Or he counts two boys among his three kids. Or whatever. It is counting the portion of his kids are in the demographic they are mentioning.

boss music starts playing on high-pitched poorly tuned xylophone

I feel like every time I hear “neat” it’s meant semi-sarcastically. Like, okay, I guess that’s kind of interesting, but it’s not really relevant or I don’t know how to continue the conversation.

“So, not that it relates to anything we’re talking about, but I’m a world champion in this one very niche thing that you’ve never heard of.”

“…neat.”

This is the type of thing that could be answered if people followed banal statistical data the way sports people follow sports data.

“This is the first time since 2017 they’ve scored over 30 points in the third quarter in a home game during the pre-season.”

It looks like there’s no walkway along that street anyway, so why go to the corner just to walk on grass anyway?

Edit: just noticed the whole thing is a walking path. Disregard.

At my old unit, we somehow managed to justify (and purchased) a really nice 3D printer for my shop. One of the pilots came in at one point and printed a 9 inch long purple spiraled Unicorn horn with NVG mount locking points built into the base, and attached it to the flight helmet of another pilot who everyone thought was a bronie. It was a masterpiece and fit perfectly.

Say it out loud.

“Do you like fish sticks?”

'Yeah

“Then you’re a gay fish.”

Kanye in the show didn’t get it and thought people were calling him a gay fish. So if real Kanye didn’t get the joke, and got mad because he thought South Park was calling him a gay fish… that’s just incredible.

I live in Alaska, so… Basically just a pair of Xtratufs by the door. Sandals and running shoes get added during the summer. Big snow boots come out for the heavy snows.

Inside I just wear socks. If I need to pop out, I pop the xtratufs on.

I can’t imagine not taking shoes off and just wandering around the house with shoes on, tracking the outside in everywhere. I don’t even know anyone who does that.

The way my dog squeezes his body and face into my leg to fall asleep (wiener dog), I’d say no. Keep in mind, we’re still warmer than ambient temperature, so it’s not like we’re not pumping out heat.

That’s a fair comparison, and would give me the appropriate “Oh shit!” that this headline just didn’t offer.

Even a single, well-known point of reference makes it better. We all know world income inequality is absolutely nuts. But to pick out a particular one needs at least some kind of reference point (unless it’s an Indian article for Indian people, like an article from the U.S. for the U.S.).

I think you are confused about the source of the deficiency.

When we make an exception for a particular gender, race, religion, etc, we imply that an exception is necessary for this class. Which is to imply that there is a deficiency, but not that it is inherent to that class.

The deficiency being corrected is in society. How society has treated that class is a failing in society itself, and an exception needs to be made to correct (and fix) that deficiency. To take an example you made of handing a crutch, the crutch is going to society to help get their leg (that class) healthy again after what they had done to it, so it can be whole. Ideally, the crutch would be a temporary thing until the body can heal its leg, but the crutch isn’t the solution in itself.

Broadening that out, society has a deficiency as it mistreats, say, trans people. Trans people exist and should be an accepted part of society treated the same as everyone else, but bathrooms, sports, etc, have excluded them or mistreated them. That may not be able to be fixed immediately, but while we work toward a society where bathrooms, sports, etc, are inherently inclusive of trans people (I can’t sat for certain how that would look), exceptions must be made to keep society functioning reasonably while it heals its deficiency (like a crutch for a person who broke their leg).

I hope that clarifies things for you. Your assumption that the deficiency is inherent to the marginalized group is what is faulty.

One of my coworkers was talking about how his wife (a truly hateful woman) was complaining about having been to a bathroom at a particular airport, and how they had changed them for trans people (she presumed). In particular, they had made all the stalls have floor-to-ceiling doors for privacy. I responded “wait… she’s mad because they made the bathrooms better for everyone, because they did it for trans people? That is an objectively better bathroom situation. I can’t imagine being upset by that.”

People can still manage to be upset, but if they did do that for trans people (and I’m honestly not convinced), that’s fantastic, and is a perfect example of what you’re talking about, I think.

What the hell are we doing?

We’re sending food as a humanitarian emergency operation to people starving from the seige perpetrated by the side we support with weapons. We’re helping to make them starve while sending “emergency aid” to them as if it’s not us keeping them in need of that aid.

The main purpose of words having meaning is to effectively communicate.

Ignoring the context that words are used and insisting on very narrow definitions is not only pedantic, but hinders the ideas being communicated.

Seriously, everything up to the introduction of Alfheim was fantastic, to me.

Then they just kind of… went a different direction with it. I even liked the romance story arc until they turned her into a fuckin Damsel In Distress.

I think my favorite part of that is the pair of tiny hands passing that double deuce right back.