"We had to leave the city to get away"

This is the more important part, even if you don't look unhealthy, if you are overweight there are health conditions that become more likely and it is likely poor lifestyle and diet is influencing it. Just because you don't look unhealthy doesn't mean you are perfectly healthy. Even people who are a healthy weight and exercise regularly could benefit from removing processed, oilly and sugary foods from their diets. People who eat amazingly healthy might not be getting as much exercise as they should. Our bodies require high quality nutrition and movement to stay in shape and most of us aren't meeting those needs between lifestyle choices, work, finances, and education.

Yea it sucks walking next to 6 lanes of high speed traffic and basically no noise restrictions on cars. Once I moved somewhere that I could walk to the grocery store down quiet, tree lined streets most of the way, it became my preferred way. The built environment influences how you travel a lot.

The design of our cities and culture in north america definitely doesn't help. Sit in your metal box and drive to the front door (or drive thru and don't even leave the car), sit at a desk all day unless you're in the trades, go home and sit down to consume netflix/youtube/games, order fast food delivered to your door.

Sure nobody is forcing people to live like this but parts of our society certainly feels like it is encouraged. People look at me funny and friends have questioned me if I park and walk into a business with a drive thru, even though I usually get faster service that way

The trick with the train is there is less impact per person serviced compared to the car. Trains are also more fair to more people and can be way faster when built correctly. Rails also have significantly less friction compared to tires and roads. Trains are also safer as conflict points are more controlled among other things.

Evs are better than ICE but just changing every car to an EV is not a solution and will solve very little, it only really helps with the energy parts of the problem. It doesn't even address the amount of land we waste and pave for cars. People call me anti EV and a "climate change" denier whenever I talk about how EVs are not a good solution, despite me having gone to school for environmental technology and being far more knowledgeable on climate change and other environmental destructions.

The industry has really tricked most people into thinking the tail pipe is the only issue with a car. The EV isn't here to save the planet, it is here to save the car industry.

I like to remind people of these things when they have a massive SUV but claim it is "good for the planet" just because it is electric.

No car is good for the planet. Some are better than others but they are all bad and destructive compared to nearly any alternative mode of transportation.

I may be wrong but I recall learning somewhere that the recent rail project used the UK and Australia as a study for it. Neither of these countries are known for amazing high speed rail. Why didn't we look at Japan, France, Spain, or other countries that have world renowned high speed rail, high ridership rates, and good frequency?

The the time to build this rail was decades ago, lets use some of the most successful examples to study so we can catch up and build a modern system instead of building something that is already outdated.

Or your bus is late because impatient drivers won't let it merge back into traffic, and it doesn't get signal priority so 20 people on a bus could be wating at a red just to let 4 cars make a left turn. Since these factors slow the bus down, people find other ways like getting a car, and then the bus doesn't get used and the city can't fix it by just throwing money at.

Bring back dedicated transit lanes and transit priority. Lets make transit faster than driving because it really should be.

Yea but the street car won't drop me off directly at my door in the suburbs 20 minutes out of town where I pay cheaper property taxes. Why should my taxes pay for something only the city people can use? Once my car is parked downtown it isn't in anyone's way while I'm at work. /s

Let your grandkids deal with the climate, housing, and oligarch crisis, we have profits to be made today!

Almost as if it is a terrible idea to rip out new infrastructure just to still not solve traffic, but remember, conservatives are "good with money" and "are good for the economy."

EPA and revitalize auto industry is obviously a conflict of interest.

I'm pretty sure they just charge the local currency equivalent in BTC at the time of purchase.

Do you have a source for that? I've seen local businesses like pizza shops and such accept btc.

Edit: the majority of crypto transactions are likely between exchanges, miners, and exchange customers. An example is the Blackrock BTC ETF buys and sells btc off an exchange in realtime in relation to the ETF purchases. I'm not saying no crime happens on the btc network but to claim 100% of transactions are crime based is just false.

Isn't USD also linked to many of those? Gangs launder physical cash through businesses, ransomware can ask for credit cards or bank accounts, terrorists may take USD as it can be spent nearly anywhere.

I must be out of the loop, what is wrong with pepe aside from having strong links to 4chan?

Wear PPE and wash thoroughly afterwards. Or call a professional who deals with wildlife to remove as they likely have experience safely handling dead animals.

I don't think it is ridiculous that an older person should move to have their needs met. That is pretty much the entire point of retirement homes and communities, they are more centered around the needs of seniors. You also hear people talk about "this will be ny retirement home" which is often a much smaller place than they would have had before.

I won't deny there are many other costs related to moving and the whole retirement home business has been getting exploitative but historically moving was actually a really good solution to her issues.

Even if you have to look at it first, once on it you can go by feel where as i find i struggle to do the same on a fully touch control.