Here’s a link to the text of one of the bills mentioned in OP’s link, H5688: http://webserver.rilegislature.gov/BillText/BillText23/HouseText23/H5688.pdf

Can OP or someone else point to the objectionable portion of the text? I’m not seeing anything alarming in here.

How did you make 3 real offers? In RI your offer is the contract… did you just hope you’d only get one bite and pull the others?

Although your home is an asset, if you’re buying right now it may be best to not view it as a financial investment.

We bought a home around ~400k knowing that it could go down in value, but building a family and having a place with a yard and proximity to decent schools/other things was enough of a benefit that we’re not really concerned about our home as a means of improving our finances. Of course, we need to be able to afford it, and we are on a much lower income than you, but we also scored a pretty good mortgage rate a few months ago.

That said, I did sacrifice certain things. Not in love with the style/architecture of the home. A little older than preferred, etc.

My suggestion is to really nail down what your absolute needs are and to be a little flexible on things that ultimately aren’t that important (aesthetics). We’re really happy with our purchase overall even if there were some things we could have done differently. We’re also fortunate to have spent less than we budgeted so we’re doing a few upgrades around the house where we’re able.

(Don’t skip inspections. We didn’t ask for any corrections, but we were comfortable with the results of our inspection even though a few things needed fixing.)

Single payer doesn’t mean that everything is covered.

You can read about the issue here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/canadas-health-care-woes-are-pushing-people-with-disabilities-toward-medically-assisted-death

Any more background on why they are proposing this? Seems like catering to special interests, but I’d be curious to know more about why this is being introduced. (Who really cares who has a wholesalers license?)

That’s literally happening in Canada right now with their MAiD program. People are choosing to end their lives early because they are worried about medical debts and some providers may encourage MAiD over hospice because hospice is more expensive.

This effort is misguided and has the potential to end up like other bad policies on this topic (see MAID in Canada where the current implementation will soon allow for those with mental illness alone to request their own death).

It’s understandable to want to reduce the suffering of loved ones. Hospice care is designed for people with terminal illness of 6mo or less and can greatly reduce suffering. If we want to improve the dignity of those dying, I’d suggest we make sure our hospice system is adequately funded and properly implemented to help those in need. One of the issues that comes up with MAID in Canada is that people are worried about cost of care at end of life. That should never be a concern for those that are dying.

I’m open to the argument; however, the change in kinetic energy involved in a crash when someone is speeding is going to be more important than their lane position.

I’m making an assumption that the sort of person who comes on to Reddit and to complain about left lane camping is the same sort of person who will drive 90mph and tailgate someone going 75 who is still passing people to their right. My assumption might be wrong, but the tendency of drivers in the US to treat the road like they’re playing Need for Speed contributes to high severity crashes more than grandma going the speed limit in the left lane.

I don’t camp in the left lane, and I will freely admit that it can be frustrating to get stuck behind a slower moving vehicle; however, if you’re encountering vehicles so frequently in the left lane that you feel the need to plead with them online to move over, perhaps it’s time to slow down a bit.

Speeding is arguably a worse offense than camping in the left lane. (Citations for speeding start higher than those for not driving in the rightmost lane, and they stack with every MPH over.) Just because all of us speed, doesn’t mean that we should be doing it.

This is more a question for your realtor, but if the entity selling the home has not lived in it the lack of info on a disclosure is not surprising. They can’t assure you one way or the other if their answers are correct and wouldn’t want to be sued for providing bad info.

Make sure that you exercise your right to inspect the home. A year ago people might have discouraged you from including the standard inspection contingency, but the market is certainly in a place now where you can inspect (I did so recently).

Bad faith? Are those italics supposed to be my words?

> It's not airborne or in water droplets! It's in small droplets of water that are airborne!

I never said it wasn’t airborne. I said that surgical masks aren’t meant to protect against aerosols. (Ironic that you say I’m arguing in bad faith while you falsely imply I hold positions that I do not.)

Would you do asbestos remediation with a surgical mask? Surely not. (Asbestos particles span both droplet and aerosol sizes.) You would select an appropriate respirator for the job.

A proper respirator seals around your nose and mouth to prevent the aerosols from coming in. An N95 can do that reasonably well for viruses when proper fit is achieved. A surgical mask can’t because they are not designed to seal. They’re designed to capture spittle droplets from the wearer.

Calling me “stupid” is unnecessary and speaks more about you than me.

I’m not going to dox myself, but I can assure you that I’m better qualified to make a physical distinction between droplets and aerosols than anyone in this comment thread.

If you had bothered to read the coverage by Nature (one of the most widely respected scientific outfits in the world) that I linked, you would have seen this:

> The seemingly uncontroversial statement marked a clear shift for the Switzerland-based WHO, which had tweeted categorically early in the pandemic, “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne,” casting the negative in capital letters as if to remove any doubt. At that time, the agency maintained that the virus spreads mainly through droplets produced when a person coughs, sneezes or speaks, an assumption based on decades-old infection-control teachings about how respiratory viruses generally pass from one person to another. The guidance recommended distancing of more than one metre — within which these droplets were thought to fall to the ground — along with hand washing and surface disinfection to stop transfer of droplets to the eyes, nose and mouth. > > It took until 20 October 2020 for the agency to acknowledge that aerosols — tiny specks of fluid — can transmit the virus, but the WHO said this was a concern only in specific settings, such as indoor, crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces. Over the next six months, the agency gradually altered its advice to say that aerosols could carry the virus for more than a metre and remain in the air (see ‘Changing views of how COVID spreads’).

Droplets are significantly larger than aerosols even though both are quite small. Droplets ante not considered airborne. Aerosols linger in the air for long periods of time whereas droplets tend to settle within a few seconds. This is important because the transmission mechanisms of viral particles contained within droplets or aerosols are different.

For a detailed scientific discussion of the difference between droplets and aerosols, as well as the impact on pandemic policies, see here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2021.0049

I hope you’ll reconsider insulting people in the future.

Aerosols.

Droplets are not the same thing as aerosols. Airborne transmission - that is transmission via aerosols - is the primary mechanism: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7

Theoretically, an N95 respirator should work well.

In practice, the benefit of wearing masks to mitigate respiratory illness is not detectable at meaningful levels in randomized clinical trials. Prepandemic, this was studied widely for flu. During the pandemic there were unfortunately very few robust studies.

This article gives a good overview: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-guidelines-cdc-walensky/621035/

Surgical masks are not N95 respirators. They are designed to prevent droplets (effectively spit) from entering the surgical site.

N95s and other respirators work to prevent aerosols from being circulated to/from the user.

Two entirely different designs for two different use cases. Surgical masks and cloth masks do not provide good control of aerosols.

That was my point - most people aren’t wearing respirators (N95s are respirators). People who are wearing respirators likely do not have a proper fit. Properly worn respirators create a tight seal and are often very uncomfortable for a full day of wear.

If you are ill enough that you are concerned about spreading illness, you should not fool yourself into thinking that your mask is effective.

Most people aren’t wearing N95s and even those who are may not be wearing them with a proper fit.

Federal law may not apply here:

> Businesses with fewer than 15 employees are not covered by the employment provisions of the ADA.

See https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/publications/fact-sheets/americans-with-disabilities-act

There may be some practical considerations: - Does the employer know this individual immunocompromised? Even if ADA does apply, the employer still needs to know an accommodation is being requested and they would go through an interactive process.

• Please know that the protection afforded by most masks is negligible. (A proper fitting respirator is different from most of the masks you see around. Also, people who are sick should know that their masks generally don’t protect others. If you have a fever stay home!) If this person’s medical condition is serious enough that getting infected with flu (it’s flu season!) or other illness is of concern, a customer facing job is going to continue to have risks.

Regarding driving: no. I’ve just moved to the area. Never have I encountered so many people trying to let me into traffic when they actually have the right of way.

I wish people wouldn’t try to be “polite” about this stuff as I actually think it’s more dangerous. Pulling out of a parking lot the other day and traffic stopped in both directions to let me out. Stop stopping and just drive!

FYI for transferring out of state (as long as it’s not out of country) you can go to any DMV location. Woonsocket location was a breeze when we did this. We were in and out in under 20min.