I've gotten to just asking for whatever sativa or hybrid strain has the lowest thc. Then I get my ounce, pay the human, and go on about my day. I can imagine they deal with some...interesting characters...a bit more often than most places expect to.

Is that why they're always throwing in free prerolls on my order? I'm old man, I can't take a whole joint of this modern weed. Anything more than my old sneakatoke and my ass is macrame-d into the sofa for the rest of the day, and I have shit to do! (see: old.)

Farm House Coffee Roasters out of Winterport.

Our school pulls from 3-4 towns along the coast and still only has like 40 kids per grade.

Fuck, just the parking lots could make a massive difference. And people would stop getting 3rd degree burns from their steering wheels.

Farm House Coffee Roaster in Winterport does a Dark Decaf that goes back & forth between Honduran and Guatemalan beans. Both are spectacular. My husband is a 20+ cup a day coffee guy, but Long Covid fucked his ability to process caffeine. FHCR's Dark Decaf scratches the coffee itch for him without sending his heart racing 'round the moon.

Their "Punch You In The Eye" dark roast is the best I've ever had.

I read an interview with one of the filmmakers once wherein he said the movie grew out of the question: "what if a gun knew it was a gun, and didn't want to be?"

15-second unskippable YouTube ads don't come cheap, bub. Now cough up another 30% bill hike.

Time to remind everyone that Ruby Bridges is still alive and only in her mid-60's, and therefore the teens throwing rocks at her are in their mid-70's; that MLK, Anne Frank, Ursula K LeGuin and Barbara Walters were all born in the same year, and King was assassinated mere months after he shifted his organizing focus from race to economic inequality and began working across racial lines to demand things like public housing, universal health care, and universal basic income.

Was your mom Calvin's Dad?

"No, wait, stop! He's building character!"

Fuck yeah. I'm too far and too old (and too poorly insured...) to participate, but I would have been all in twenty years ago. Best of luck to you!

That's a fair point.

This strain of ugly nativism goes back to the arrival of the Famine Irish and French Canadians in the 18th & 19th centuries. The Know-Nothing Party used the Catholicism of the refugees to stoke hatred and gain political power. It's disgusting to hear from the mouths of otherwise sensible people.

The excellent book Hard Times, Hard Men: Maine and the Irish 1830-1860 by James H Mundy is an excellent resource on both the history of the Irish in Maine and the history of how cynically the wealthy (often themselves transplants from Mass & points south) have instigated, fed, and used this nativism to divide the working class of Maine against itself, lowering wages and increasing repression to the detriment of everyone but the rich.

We're actually #4, I think. Their list goes 1) trans folks, 2) tEh GaYz, 3) black folks, 4) women who aren't also covered by points 1-3. Notice how they absolutely did not stop with bathroom bills or sports bans, and are now coming after adults' private medical decisions. The same logic will be applied to everyone else in time.

There's a Board Game Cafe event that happens in Belfast periodically, I think they're trying to make it more regular in the new year. The Our Town Belfast Facebook page probably has a flyer for it?

As a restaurant owner-operator, that drove me nuts. My staff are in the top 10% of nationwide earners as servers according to the NLRB, and they deserve more - but I already pay as much above the minimum as i can and stay open. These kinds of industry-wide changes have to be mandated, at least at first, or the people who want to do it right will be driven out of business by those willing to exploit their staffs before the culture can change enough. I grew up on WA, where there hasn't been a subminimum wage for tipped employees since the 70's, and people still tip. And tip well. Front-of-house labor is such a small percentage of overall costs on this fucking place, anyone saying it's going to break them is either lying to you or riding the edge of bankruptcy as it is, and if it's not labor it'll be the cost of chicken that drives them under. Food costs have risen during the pandemic by nearly twice what I'd be paying without the subminum wage, if I can take the one I can take the other - and I'd rather see the increases in my prices go to my staff instead of Sysco, cause they're sure AF not passing it along to the drivers, pickers, or farmers.

True, but they didn't spend nearly as much. IIRC from the article I read months ago, the pro side spent something not far off of an order of magnitude more than the antis. Definitely tracks with the relative ad frequency I saw.

Well, it's on the ballot next November so don't forget to vote! It's an off-year election so turnout will likely be extremely low and just a few votes could be the difference of $0.20/kwh on all of our bills.

Exactly. Bring the governance of our utilities home to our communities, and take the profit motive right the fuck out of anything necessary for survival.

Well, how else did you think CMP was going to make up the $300+ per customer that they spent on pro-corridor ads? YouTube ads don't buy themselves, and no one the c-suite is giving up a yacht for your grandma's oxygen machine.

I'm not sure I understand your question.

KLP is a consumer-owned utility, so they have no profit motive and the consumers can vote out the board of directors if they do a shite job. And the BoD are mostly local residents, who don't want their power to be unreliable and expensive, so they have a whole lot more incentive to not suck at their jobs than a bunch of Spanish millionaires basking in the Azores (on the yachts we bought them with our absurdly high bills) while we all shiver in the dark.

Everyone remember to please go vote in '23 for the Our Power ballot initiative that will turn CMP into a statewide KLP!

... actually, I'm originally from a small island near Seattle. But my husband is a local.

Yes it is! I've really enjoyed all his works that I've read, from books to opinion pieces in the PPH.