Minnesota is probably the most famous example at the moment, but they’re far from alone!

https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/states-with-universal-free-school-meals-so-far-update/

Red states are not okay, because all they have left in their value system is cruelty toward people they see as not “pulling their weight,” as if we still live in some resource-scarce era of yore where if you don’t work, you don’t eat (and even if you do work, eating is not guaranteed, better work harder!).

Blue states are increasingly providing lunches, and sometimes even breakfast, for all students free of charge. It used to be income-based (you’d get free or half-priced lunch based on your family’s income), but even that system is getting ditched because of the associated stigma and the problem of some needy students falling between the cracks.

Everyone makes fun of California’s prop 65 warnings, but this is exactly the situation they exist for: knowing which colorful plate sets to avoid at Crate & Barrel.

You say this like we don’t still have kitchenware with lead (or other nasties like cadmium) in them, often for purely aesthetic reasons. Most of these are discontinued products still in circulation, but some are still being produced (in theory they’re “safe for use” because the heavy metals are sealed behind something nontoxic, but scratches and chips may expose them).

No sugar. It’s important to start with good coffee (freshly ground beans of decent quality), then I will often add milk. While I do enjoy black coffee the milk makes it even better, and more importantly it helps temper the caffeine (especially if I’m drinking it on an empty stomach). I picked it up in Japan where “milk coffee” and “milk tea” are popular (although they often add sweeteners, but I find the milk is sweet enough).

Have you tried exploring the wonderful world of tea? There are SO many kinds and varieties, so maybe that’s more your thing than coffee. My advice is to go to a local tea shop rather than buy from the grocery store; the quality difference is astounding, and don’t be afraid of looseleaf tea. Same thing with tea as coffee, you can add milk for a richer, creamier taste; because there’s so many varieties of tea out there milk won’t taste good with many of them (clashing flavors, or the milk overpowers the subtle tea flavor), but I’ve also tried some where the milk made the flavor of the tea stronger somehow. Milk + Jasmine/English Breakfast are great starting points.

(Edit to add: poor-quality and oversteeped tea will taste bitter and you’ll be tempted to add sugar; I used to be lazy and drink my tea out of the same mug I was steeping it in but I now am diligent about keeping steeping time to 3-4 minutes.)

I don’t abuse coffee because it’s a stimulant, I abuse coffee because it’s fucking delicious.

I’ve heard two good explanations as to why she’d publicize such a story:

1. She botched a common Republican technique by choosing the wrong victim to villainize (full explanation here)

2. There are witnesses to the puppy murder (construction crew) so this is her way of getting ahead of the story before someone else tells it (AFAIK so far we’ve only heard her version; maybe reality is even worse)

This was cross-posted to “usauthoritarianism”

Otherwise I wouldn’t really care, but like wtf. Of all examples of authoritarianism/fighting the system, feeding a parking meter? What is this, anarchy for infants?

I assume it’s shorthand for “pays for”

My understanding is most shorthand/euphemisms nowadays seem to originate from tiktok’s strict and sometimes inscrutable censorship rules. Maybe this is one of them?

Edit: apparently this was a case of text-to-speech gone away. I prefer my head cannon of tiktok trying to censor conversations about anyone who “pays for” an elicit service.

Eh, I’m not sure how I feel about this one. Parking is a huge thorn in the side of transportation reform, and ensuring parking turnover is actually pretty crucial to a functional transportation system. On-street parking is public right-of-way that could be a bike lane, enhanced bus stop, street seating for restaurants/cafes, parklets, drainage swales, large medians for trees, wider sidewalks, the list goes on. However we don’t get these nice things because “wE NeEd ThE pArKiNg SuPpLy.” Except often you’ll find that there would be sufficient supply to remove the parking on even just one side of the street if turnover were higher, and turnover is not higher because people are abusing the parking. Things like store employees parking all day in spots meant for customers, people using on-street parking to avoid more expensive lots at the destinations they’re actually visiting (like entertainment venues), etc. Have you ever encountered a parking meter that would only let you put in 2 hours of money even though you need the spot for much longer, and you had to run out mid-way through whatever you were doing to feed the meter? That means you were probably not the intended user for that space and you should have found longer-term parking elsewhere. Maybe that store manager that runs outside every other hour to feed the meter rather than use an all-day parking lot (but that’s a three-block walk away and this parking is right here!!1) or taking public transportation (because that’s beneath them) would rethink this behavior after an expensive ticket. Point is, I’m not sure helping people skirt parking regulations is fighting the system or standing up for the little guy.

That’s a 2.24x price increase. That’s even beyond Argentina-hyperinflation levels of increase. Are we sure this is an apples-to-apples comparison? Like, was there a sale or bulk discount that made the shorter can relatively cheaper? I’m struggling to believe a retailer would engage in such a brazen markup in a single week. (Not to say it’s not possible, but it’s extreme enough that I’m not taking the word of some random hand-written graphic on the Internet.)

Not op, but yes? Like people have been doing since homo erectus first migrated to snowy places?

If Lemmy were styled after an old-school forum board rather than reddit I’d agree with you, but because profile pics on Lemmy are so tiny they’re basically pointless. However they’re just large and colorful enough to be distracting. Lemmy’s format can feel a bit cluttered as is, and I’d rather be able to scan and quickly identify important info–such as whether a comment poster is OP–than have my eye get caught by something superfluous and purely aesthetic like a profile pic. Thus I’d rather they do away with them entirely, at least in bylines.

For some inexplicable reason, Japan produces a lot of anti-war art. It seems the trend started sometime around the mid-20th century. Even one of Japan’s biggest war franchises, Gundam, features a surprising number of anti-war themes. No explanation has been provided to date to explain why.

• Philomena Cunk, probably

My understanding is sugar water is fine for hummingbirds, but the red dye often added to it is not.

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If it’s a joke about Japanese conjugation, but that’s not how Japanese conjugation works, is it actually a joke about Japanese conjugation?

If someone tried to make a joke about English conjugation that hinged on the past-tense of “to run” being “ron” instead of “ran,” would that even qualify as a joke? “He has such a sweet tooth, the moment his diet ended he didn’t ‘ron’ to the store, he ‘macaron’ to the store!” makes no sense. That’s what the tiramisu meme reads like, except it also misspells tiramisu, so the English joke would actually be more like, “he has such a sweet tooth, the moment his diet ended he didn’t ‘ron’ to the store, he ‘ice cron’ [misspelling of ice cream] to the store!” which makes even less sense.

I know enough Japanese to not get this.

Two problems: one, it’s tiramisu, not tiramasu, but I’d let that slide as a fudge to make the joke work if it weren’t for problem two.

Problem two is that the unconjugated form of tiramasu would be tiraru. Except tiraru would be a “godan verb” because the “a” vowel prior to the “ru” ending, which means it would conjugate as tirarimasu and tirarimasen. At this point we’ve strayed too far from “tiramisu” for the joke to work IMO. Which left me staring at the meme for way too long trying to figure out if it was an attempt at a Japanese joke or not.

Reference on Japanese conjugation: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/verb-conjugation-groups/

For real though, aggressive wasp species give the chill species a bad name. It’s like being mad at bumblebees because Asian giant hornets exist.

Yellow jackets for example are definitely unpleasant: they buzz you when you try to eat outdoors, don’t get the message to move on when swatted at, and constantly carry an attitude of “come at me bro.” However my local species of paper wasp (I live in the Pacific Northwest of the US) is crazy chill and very conflict avoidant: they don’t buzz or chase humans, don’t show interest in human food or garbage, and will get out of your way if disturbed (assuming you’re not attacking their home)

In fact, we actively attract paper wasps to our garden by planting western yarrow, and even have plans to erect a wasp box for them to safely make a home in (no I’m not joking). Why? Because in addition to being peaceful members of our garden ecosystem–alongside butterflies, ladybugs, frogs, salamanders, birds, and other critters–they are dedicated hunters of garden pests such as cabbage white caterpillars. As someone who grows a lot of kale for its year-round hardiness, I cannot express how much I appreciate wasps’ dutiful patrol of our brassicas and other crops. And if you can get a population to establish themselves near your garden they will indeed be dutiful in scouting out pests.

It took me a while to shake off my all-wasps-are-bastards attitude toward them, but I really cannot express how much paper wasps have become garden bros, and it makes me sad to see my bros vilified.