in some sad way, i already know

Thank you for bringing this up! Many hand sanitizers and household cleaners proudly claim to "Kill 99.99% of germs."

In fact, this does not mean that the product kills 99.99% of all germs known to exist.

It means that, during product testing in a controlled environment, the product killed 99.99% of the germs it was specifically tested against. As you might imagine, Lysol isn't testing its kitchen disinfectant spray against millions and millions of unique microbes.

In the U.S., labeling laws usually require that companies actually identify somewhere else on the label which germs are being tested and killed. Next time you see a "kills 99.99% of germs" label, check out the rest of the label, and you'll find the small print which specifies that it kills 99.9% of one type of flu, or Covid, or E. Coli, etc. This is why many labels even include an asterisk, i.e.: "Kills 99.99% of Germs!*" Look for the companion asterisk elsewhere on the label for more info.

There are different kinds of germs, like Viruses; Bacteria, Fungi, and Protozoans.

The way we kill these germs to prevent infections varies based on the germs' structure. Essentially, we need different "weapons" (cleaning methods) to fight different microbes. A product that kills Flu Viruses and E. Coli can't necessarily destroy Norovirus or Giardia.

No product is effective against every type of germ, even common germs which regularly cause illness in households and communities.

Hand washing is effective against more germs, not only because it can destroy germs which hand sanitizer cannot, but because it simply washes them off your hands.

Just look around: A housing shortage, crime, pollution; we need better schools and parks. Whatever our needs, they all require work. And as long as we have unsatisfied needs, there’s work to be done.

So ask yourself, what kind of world has work but no jobs? It’s a world where work is not related to satisfying our needs, a world where work is only related to satisfying the profit needs of business.

“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot

Literally right after I saw this post, I saw another post in a discord chat for BOOK EDITORS in which an outspokenly liberal editor talked about how Nabokov should have never been published because he wrote about p*dophiles and described women's bodies in ways that made her uncomfortable. She described his writing as "objectively terrible" and said she wanted to burn his books. And other editors were bringing up classics they didn't like and talking about how they wanted to throw them in the trash. This wasn't like a light "unpopular opinion!" conversation. This was actual book editors talking about how books should be destroyed and censored.

There is something so scary and toxic in global culture right now. The revival of fascism is influencing everyone's mindset and approach to art, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.

I see far more books being censored today than when I was a kid. Librarians handed me The Catcher in the Rye, The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Animal Farm when I was literally 8-11. My mom would never have taken a book away from me. I read everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Qur'an to atheist texts under my desk at school. Teachers thought nothing of it or encouraged it. Books seemed universally acknowledged as sacrosanct to me.

Now I can't find any adults who don't hesitate or want to make exceptions when it comes to censorship. Even the most liberal social activist librarians I know go, "well except for book X..."

“This makes me uncomfortable” is NOT a valid reason for censorship

And to be clear, when I say this, I’m talking about shit like To Train Up A Child and The Protocols of Zion. One is a text responsible for the deaths of multiple children because it’s an abuse how-to, and the other is entirely fabricated “protocols” from a group that never actually existed but is claimed to represent all Jews, and it’s basically one long antisemitic screed.

That book is Nazi propaganda, an utterly incoherent anti-semitic screed full of fascist talking points, and its contents are, objectively speaking, dangerous. It is a book that calls for society-scale genocidal bigotry, and all of its pages are bent towards making that argument as persuasively as it can.

And yet, there it was, in plain view of children in a primary school, because what the teachers at my school understood is that, first of all, kids don't really give that much of a shit about a fascist's masturbatory autobiography, not when there's Asterix available.

And second, that what children need is not to be hermetically sealed away from all forms of harmful media for fear that they be corrupted, what they need is to learn to navigate harmful media, to read it critically, to process the awful things inside of it and come out the other side without being persuaded to do or think something horrible.

Children need - and I mean need - to learn the skills to do this, because otherwise they grow up into adults with no defenses against propaganda and misinformation, i.e. the exact kind of angry, terrified, flailing mob that gets persuaded to assault a nation's capitol when an election doesn't go their way.

Nobody is immune to propaganda and anyone can fall deep into a conspiracy hole, but there are levels of resistance to those things a person can develop.

And the only way to develop resistance is to be exposed to it!

It's a necessary part of the process, it is mandatory, you have to be exposed to it so you can learn what it is and how to deal with it. And either that exposure happens in a controlled learning environment, with trained teachers helping someone through it, or it happens in an uncontrolled environment to a person who has never learned how to understand what they're looking at.

Zionism is an answer to the Jewish question. What do you do about Jews and antisemites both being in your country? Deport your fucking Jews. Or at least make life miserable enough for them that they leave.

Zionism confronts the age-old canard of dual loyalties and Jews' inherent incompatibility with their diasporic homelands and answers that by saying "You're totally right".

baby carrots (good dipped in ranch)

Celery sticks (add some peanut butter or cream cheese for extra flavor and protein)

Broccoli (good with ranch, cheese, or salt/pepper/butter)

Canned peas (you can microwave in a microwave-safe bowl. Good with salt/pepper/butter)

Bell peppers (cut into strips, good with cream cheese)

Canned green beans (can be microwaved in microwave-safe bowl. Good with salt/pepper/butter)

Hummus (good with crackers or tortilla chips)

Salsa (good with tortilla chips)

Guacamole (good with tortilla chips)

Need it in something?

Can't see it:

Hummus

salsa

Guacamole

Can see but disguised flavor (can usually be found store bought or done at home and use different veggies):

Dressed up ramen - just toss in some random veggies in ramen of your choice. Pretty much everything I've tried goes fine with it.

Chicken pot pie

Vegetable soup (with so many together it's hard to taste any specific one!)

Chicken noodle soup

Sweet and sour pork (haven't tried it but chicken should be fine in place of pork)

Texture problems:

Need it soft:

Hummus

Salsa

Guacamole

Cooked carrots

Avocados

Beans (personally I prefer black beans and canned baked beans)

Peas (make sure to cook well, great value brand has the softest peas I've tried)

Cooked broccoli (note: it does smell bad while cooking)

Cooked asparagus (note: also smells bad while cooking)

Cooked zucchini and squash (good together but can be eaten separate)

You can also puree most vegetables and eat with a spoon or use them as a dip

Needs to be crunchy:

Raw carrots

Raw celery

Raw bell peppers

Salad (remember you can put whatever you want in it! Even if that means no lettuce)

Most veggies are okay raw, and are usually very crunchy

Veggies google says stay crunchy after lightly cooking:

Snap peas

Brussel sprouts

Cabbage

Water chestnut

Bamboo shoots

Broad texture tips:

You can change textures by eating raw, cooking, chopping, pureeing, etc

You can separate different textures to use in different ways (ie using broccoli tops in a soup and eating the bottoms raw)