Oh, I agree if you’re talking about addressing homelessness. That makes sense. If you’re advocating free social housing for every single person in the country, I’m not sure how that could be done or if it’s ever been done anywhere ever? I would be curious to hear about possible solutions though.

Good to hear about any moves in the right direction anywhere.

Do you know if house prices are still a problem there?

Most definitely. Southern California in general has some of the highest housing prices in the US. I think the AirBnB regulations are only part of the equation. They need to drastically reduce the barriers to construction of higher density housing, for instance.

LA actually has “vanlords”, people who rent out old, beat up vans parked on the street to homeless people, for hundreds of dollars a month. Some real dystopian shit if I’ve ever seen any.

I think I had heard of the idea before, so I didn’t come up with it. I just did a quick search and one of the first results says LA does this. There are probably other cities too…

https://www.steadily.com/blog/airbnb-short-term-rental-laws-regulations-los-angeles

No doubt!

I don’t know, and based on a quick search, it doesn’t appear that it’s been done. California is currently working on a law to limit corporate ownership to 1,000 homes, lol.

In addition to only renting out single rooms, I also thought of the scenario where someone goes to visit a relative and rents their whole apartment while they’re away, perhaps when there is some major event in their town that causes all hotels to be sold out. Both of those scenarios would be addressed by the rule I proposed to only allow renting out the primary residence on AirBnB.

Crack down on AirBnB Forbid ownership for non-residents.

Ah, yes, I forgot to mention AirBnB! Those are both good calls.

The AirBnb issue is a little complicated because I’ve seen some good arguments that it can help people afford to keep their homes. But I think that could easily be addressed by a single, simple rule: you are only allowed to rent your primary residence as determined by tax records.

I think it would take a massive, earth-shaking event for any other major party to be formed in the US. I understand that ballot access in most states is an extremely high barrier that blocks anyone except the major parties. Of course, the two major parties made sure to make it that way.

What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again?

1. Ban corporate ownership and excessive individual ownership (ex: > 10) of homes.
2. Remove most barriers to building lots of new and higher density housing (ex: four-story multi-unit buildings) except legitimate safety and ecological concerns.

I guess the NYPD has reached Reddit doxxing levels now.

Maybe they have always been at Reddit doxxing levels?

This is my understanding too. I just read in the news the last couple of days that Biden was considering handing out preemptive pardons to people like Liz Cheney, etc.

Correct. Jury trials in the US need unanimity from the 12 jurors to either establish guilt or innocence. Anything other than unanimity is a hung jury. Source: I’ve been a member of two juries that went to trial and reached unanimity. Also, be aware that a single juror holding out against the other jurors will go through intense pressure to adopt the prevailing opinion. The other jurors will be pissed that that one person is prolonging the process by days, especially when the judge keeps sending them back to keep deliberating and hopefully reach a unanimous decision. Jury nullification should not be taken lightly as it’s not a walk in the park.

To list one no one else has mentioned yet: Sorry To Bother You

I totally understand! After some people mentioned Sensodyne on this thread, I looked it up and indeed some Sensodyne “flavors” (but not all?) are SLS-free. From what I recall, there really is an ingredient in Sensodyne that reduces sensitivity. I don’t know about gum/cavity issues though. Maybe your dentist can confirm. Take care!

After JASON discontinued the toothpaste I had been using for quite a while, I found Burt’s Bees and liked it. However, I recently found out by scanning it with the Yuka app that the Burt’s Bees paste had some other bad ingredient. So now I’ve switched to Hello toothpaste which seems to be pretty clean. If you ever get interested in trying another paste I would suggest Hello.

No problem!

home.arpa

Yes, I’ve been using this too. Here’s the RFC for .home.arpa (in place of .home): https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8375.html

It still does? They have a version for people with internet access, and a version for people without, with a heavy dose of offline applications and information. You can also download more offline resources after you install it.

https://www.endlessos.org/os-direct-download

I try not to let myself get affected by crazy anonymous comments on the internet. I definitely avoid thinking that they’re any kind of majority. I figure that those comments come from a minority of people who are either really messed up, have an ulterior motive, or whatever variety of atypical motivation. If nothing else, it’s better for my mental health to think this way.