Of course - can’t wait to hear how your gardening experiences go, please share updates and photos!

I think cucumbers (and relatives like watermelon, squash, etc.) don’t transplant well due to their sensitive roots, so if you grow them in a large plastic pot, don’t expect to move them around or plant them in the ground later.

It sounds like you have a good approach to the gardening - most beginners take on too much and get overwhelmed. Starting small is really smart. Being clear and realistic about your goals is also a great sign.

Growing in the hotter south I always had trouble with cucumbers coming out too bitter, maybe due to the heat. I haven’t grown them much since, but I have heard from others that cucumbers can be really productive if you give them the right place (needs enough sun, water, and space).

It seems like a lot of people are just not reading the article or the context of the quote:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2023/07/27/the-witcher-casting-director-says-yennefer-casting-was-to-challenge-beauty-standards-which-is-completely-insane/

Now, this is not Holland saying that Chalotra is ugly, or that they cast someone ugly to play the role of the most beautiful woman in the world. … Rather, Holland is saying that she is challenging the “standard of beauty” by casting a woman with slightly darker skin.

I do understand that traditional Western fantasy is predominantly white, but I disagree fundamentally with the notion that the “standard of beauty” for most people is being white. I don’t think anyone in the entire world outside of a tiny, tiny sliver of absolute racist scumbags would look at Anya Chalotra and think anything other than “This woman is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.” Casting Chalotra may challenge our perceptions of fantasy as white (a complicated discussion on its own) but it does nothing to challenge any standard of beauty.

Emphasis is mine.

You didn’t fact-check how many trans people there are in the U.S.¹

It looks to be between 0.5% and 1.6% of the total U.S. population (2 - 6 in 400).

References:

• https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Trans-Pop-Update-Jun-2022.pdf
• https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/

Semi-related, the number of intersex people (in the literature they talk about people with “disorders of sexual development”) have also been estimated to be around 1% of the population (4 in 400), source:

https://www.nature.com/articles/518288a

¹ yes, the U.S. isn’t mentioned in the OP, but your sources are looking at U.S. demographics and so I will continue with the U.S.-centrism already present.

Some Thoughts (oh boy):

There is a weird logic to pointing out how few trans people there are actually are in the OP. Even if there were many more trans people, (like if there really were 1 in 5 trans people as is commonly mis-perceived), would that make the GOP’s campaign of fear-mongering and animus any more justified? I don’t think this is what Shon (@gayblackvet) was going for, but it almost seems like a consequence of how the message was written.

Maybe I’m wrong here, but does it seem like way it is written implies that the problem is not that the trans panic is unjustified in its fear of trans people, but that it is merely blown out of proportion? Maybe the angle was that even if we assume trans people are a problem, it’s still so few people it’s not worth all this panic and legislation (there are >500 anti-trans bills in the U.S. right now, over 40 of them have already passed).

Rhetorically this perspective-taking might be effective in appealing to mildly transphobic centrists or moderate conservatives who are not entirely comfortable with trans people but who might not want to be perceived as transphobic and don’t want to be associated with the rabid and vocal transphobia of the GOP.

That wedge between a more moderate closeted transphobe and a more openly transphobic right-wing one is politically useful, so I am not necessarily complaining, but there is a concern here about whether tackling transphobia is really the goal here, and if so how we should best go about that.

Agreeing with everyone else, Potentilla indica seems likely. The fruits taste watery, not desirable but not toxic.

they debunked the myth that caffeine causes pancreatic cancer:

https://www.nature.com/articles/bjc2015235

EDIT: Caffeine might make you more likely to have issues with your heart, and isn’t good for your blood pressure.

exactly; there will always be piracy as long as piracy is needed, a post-piracy world is a utopia, even in the worst dystopia people find ways to “pirate”

A direct example of the kind of harm Republican policies can cause.

It is Texas after all.

In 2017 Cory Bernardi, an Australian conservative politician, accidentally ended up in a photoshoot organized by the Labor party to promote voting yes to the question “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?” in the same-sex marriage postal survey.

The survey had a turnout of 79.5% and the results were:

• yes: 61.6%
• no: 38.4%

As a result of the survey parliament was able to vote and legalize same-sex marriage. The survey results happened in November 2017 and same-sex marriage was legalized in December 2017.

See:

Bernardi accidentally walked through the marriage equality photo of Western Australia Labor politicians wearing rainbow “It’s Time” shirts in Parliament House on Monday night.

Bernardi is firmly against legalising same-sex marriage and is campaigning for the “no” camp in the same-sex marriage postal survey.

Source: BuzzFeed News

If you would like to traumatize yourself more, here’s a video about another dangerous water slide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulIcekOTOqg

yeah, obvs the daughter

nice, thank you!

Nice, any thoughts about fertilizing fava beans in particular? I have heard that nitrogen fertilizers cause poor yields for legumes. Maybe it’s poor yields either way at this point, so I might as well try 😅

no worries; if you’re ever interested, I personally really enjoyed Susan Stryker’s Transgender History!

Harvested some asparagus and solomon’s seal shoots the other day, they were delicious. Dogwoods are leafing out and some early iris blooms are opening. Most daffodils have lost their petals. My fava beans don’t look so great, I think I planted them in too much woodchip mulch. They have flowers, though. I was debating fertilizing them with urine - any thoughts? I generally avoid fertilizing legumes, but the thick woodchip mulch might be an exception?

interesting, I would definitely love to read about it if you ever find that!

thanks for introducing me to that wikipedia page, it was definitely interesting to me <3

not sure what to take from what you are saying, do you mean they didn’t have hormones, or … that they drank horse urine (like, are you assuming context from the fact Premarin was derived from horses?)

so cool, thanks for sharing - I wonder if there was anything more specifically about the use of hormones? Just wondering how that might have been working in ancient contexts (I can only imagine a few ways it might work, such as by trying to isolate hormones from urine and then taking those orally.)

It certainly does benefit the right to some extent, but I wouldn’t ignore the strategy that the right uses of exploiting Christians, and that’s where contraception and abortion come in as issues (stemming from theological convictions).