That seems right given the rate hikes this year. You're also using a good amount of gas. How big is your place?

My Nest thermostat has really saved my ass this winter. 2 bedroom apartment, two floors. Drafty old windows in a 110 year old apartment. I only used 85 therms in December. Thermostat sets to 65° at night, pre-heats the apartment a bit for morning when I'm getting ready for work, then back to 65° until a little bit before I get home from work. It's pretty great. If it's exceptionally cold outside the thermostat turns on the heat earlier to try and keep it in an eco friendly range.highly recommend getting one of these if you're trying to keep your bills under control. Super easy install that I did myself. Let my landlord know, but honestly, you don't have to if they're a dickhead.

You can still be a banana. I believe in you.

"it's disingenuous" "How" "Because it makes it sound worse than it is" "We're talking about different things"

K

Again, it's disingenuous. It makes it sounds like there's a free for all and anyone can just purchase body parts from a funeral home. That's very obviouly not the case. Next time a loved one dies, try to keep anything other than created remains, or try to buy some that aren't from some antique medical collection. Get a signed contract, a will, religious declaratio, whatever legal documents you can think of. You can't. You're not going to write laws that will stop some shithead who's already breaking the law.

It's illegal to steal body parts from people. You need consent from the person before they die, or from their family, in order to do anything with them. Anyone buying body parts for a legitimate purpose ensures they have that paperwork. You cannot just walk into a funeral home and buy body parts. That's regulation. In a lot of those cases, the funeral home got consent from families through fraud or forged documents and sold to legitimate buyers who thought they had the right paperwork. They would have had everything they needed to beat the government in attempts of anymore oversight. In other cases she straight stole body parts and sold them on the black market in a way that wouldn't have been reported anyway. I'm not sure how you think the government is going to regulate someone selling things out of the backdoor of a funeral home when you can't check if the urn you got had all your loved ones pieces in it.

Disingenuous wording there. It's illegal to steal body parts for any reason, which is what that person did. The two main categories of selling human remains are for legitimate education and research, which has a massive paper trail.. and collectors who deal on antiques. If you're selling or buying new human specimens as a collector, they're 100% stolen and you're already breaking the law.

It's extremely regulated, but easy to skirt. You're not going to check your relatives organs out at the funeral home.

Right. You don't think those people should be doing it because you believe they haven't been victimized. You want disabled people who have been victimized to do the heavy lifting.. What is it about your argument that you think I'm misinterpreting?

Ah yes. It should be up to disabled people to offer free ADA consulting to businesses discriminating against them. I see your point.

A strangers dog can always huff my leg. Idc if I'm at a a breakfast table, a urinal, or being wheeled into an ambulance.

Jaywalking is illegal but I'm willing to bet you, or peoplenyour friends with, do it on a fairly consistent basis. And jaywalking is far more dangerous than someone's pocketbook dog coming to a coffee shop.

Nah, no exception, but anecdotally, people that hang out in bars care less than people who hang out in coffee shopsm

Don't discriminate against disabled people and you won't get sued 🤷🏻‍♂️

There's no such thing as service animal papers. It's all a large scam industry. The ADA and the federal government do not require any kind of certificate and they don't recognize any of them.

Most of what you just said was entirely wrong. But thanks to someone else telling me I was wrong, I already have the page pulled up. From the ADA website

"Q5. Does the ADA require service animals to be professionally trained?

A. No. People with disabilities have the right to train the dog themselves and are not required to use a professional service dog training program.

Q8. Do service animals have to wear a vest or patch or special harness identifying them as service animals?

A. No. The ADA does not require service animals to wear a vest, ID tag, or specific harness.

Q17. Does the ADA require that service animals be certified as service animals?

A. No. Covered entities may not require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal, as a condition for entry.

There are individuals and organizations that sell service animal certification or registration documents online. These documents do not convey any rights under the ADA and the Department of Justice does not recognize them as proof that the dog is a service animal."

https://www.ada.gov/resources/service-animals-faqs/

I agree, people skirt the law. That is literally my point. The law is nearly unenforceable because protecting the rights of disabled people is the more important issue. I'd rather have solid protection for disabled people's rights, even if that means people abuse that protection to beat other laws.

Question 4

Q4. If someone's dog calms them when having an anxiety attack, does this qualify it as a service animal?

A. It depends. The ADA makes a distinction between psychiatric service animals and emotional support animals. If the dog has been trained to sense that an anxiety attack is about to happen and take a specific action to help avoid the attack or lessen its impact, that would qualify as a service animal. However, if the dog’s mere presence provides comfort, that would not be considered a service animal under the ADA.

https://www.ada.gov/resources/service-animals-faqs/

I'm not being contrarian for the fuck of it. The law is unenforceable because ADA protections are pretty bomb proof. The penalty risk of violating someone's disability rights generally outweighs the risk of some annoyed customers.

I know a veteran who carries a Yorkie in a purse. It's trained in epileptic and low blood sugar alert. Turns out Yorkies as a breed are REALLY good at it. A business owner could lose their whole livelihood by making an assumption about his dog.

You're right. It's not a gray area. Psychiatric service animal's are separate from emotional support animals. If they can identify a mental health disability, and are trained to perform a task, they are protected under the ADA. That includes anxiety/panic attacks. This isn't an opinion. That is the law. I'm sure it's on the ADA website somewhere.

"it's trained to comfort me when I panic" can be 100% valid under the ADA. If the dog/animal is trained to recognize panic attacks, anxiety, whatever, and trained for a specific response that mitigates that, they qualify.

Two questions that are easy to lie about, and most people don't bring misbehaving dogs into businesses. So what you're saying is, if you can lie, and your dog listens, it's good? I mean, I do agree, if someone has a shitty dog, make them leave. But outside of that, it's pretty much unenforceable.

I work in a hospital with disabled veterans, I see service dogs on a near daily basis. They don't have to wear a vest or any other identifying tags, and many people choose not to use them because of they don't want to advertise that they're disabled any more than they have to. Also, depending on what kind of task the service animal provides, they can, and do, still act like pets. And there are plenty of pet dogs who are highly trained and well behaved. There are no hard fast rules for service animal's other than being trained to perform a task(s) for a disabled person.

I'll let my buddy know his seizure alert dog isn't valid enough for you.

But how do you know whether or not it's an actual service animal? Do you think your average barista is qualified to make that determination? Should disabled people have to justify their service animal's existence to an 18 year old cashier every time they walk into a business? Like.. I get your point, but in practice, how do you enforce that?

I'm allergic to dogs. Being close to one, especially indoors, can fuck my whole day up.

And I do not care. As long as they're under control, bring your dog in, who cares. I wouldn't want one in a sit down restaurant where I'm going to be sniffling by the time my entree gets there, but whatever. I wouldn't bitch about someone's seizure alert dog in a restaurant. So does it really matter?

Far more annoyed by people's children in public places than I am of dogs.

Unless there's something remarkable in terms of how they died like an obvious murder (which pretty much is never the case), they probably won't release much.