Hunters get every other day of the week. I don't see what the big deal is, especially since hiking as a hobby doesn't inconvenience the general population whereas hunting as a hobby can impact other people trying to do outdoor activities. Pick a hobby that doesn't involve shooting at things with a deadly weapon, which has the potential to endanger other people, if you want free reign to do it whenever and wherever. Obviously a hobby that involves a weapon that can harm other people is going to be regulated more than walking in the woods.

Also what are you even talking about regarding two weeks? Deer shotgun season is relatively short but there are many other seasons. Various bird seasons span much of October and November (which is prime hiking weather around here), bear is most of September and November, things like bobcat and coyote are open basically all winter. There are other things like hare and other animals I'm not listing here that happen in parts of fall, spring, and winter. So it's definitely not just two weeks per year that this impacts people. It's months of the year, summer is the only time that isn't really impacted by hunting.

Giving people who don’t hunt one day per weekend where they can hike in the woods without worrying about being accidentally shot at seems like a good thing we should keep.

He would have won over 50% in an RCV system after 61% voted to recall him? I find that hard to believe.

The issue here is first past the post. If this election had used ranked choice voting or another method requiring over 50% to win, he never would have won. He was recalled, but then won a plurality of only 35%: https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/03/13/fall-river-mayor-wins-recall-election

So the issue is that the voting system allows someone with 35% of the vote to win simply because there were a lot of candidates in the race. No way would he have won under RCV as he was never going to be the 2nd choice candidate of the 61% of people who voted to recall him in the first place.

It's fine to try to save money, but I don't understand the people who act like they are morally or physically superior because they keep the heat at 55. It's your financial choice, and that's valid, but it's not something to brag about.

Is there polling on this or is this just anecdotal?

This polling suggests that 59% of the state overall wants to see improvements to public transportation as a top transportation priority for the governor: https://www.massincpolling.com/the-topline/massachusetts-poll-78-of-voters-view-transportation-system-in-only-fair-or-poor-condition-59-support-future-mbta-shutdowns-to-expedite-improvements

73% of the state also supports transforming the commuter rail into a true regional rail network. While I am sure there are people outside the Boston metro (which is more like outside 495, not 128), and even within it, who want to gut the MBTA, I'm not sure there is evidence that there is a "vast majority", particularly if we are talking outside 128 as opposed to outside 495.

It is true that 62% of those polled supported making towns and cities within 128 contribute more to the T, but it's worth noting that 64% of voters within 128 itself supported this, so shifting the funding burden of the T more towards Boston and surrounding communities was actually slightly more popular within 128 than it was statewide. Which is a bit surprising.

Oh duh, I don't know how I misread that, my bad. I would have been mad about that too.

My wife and I had an amazing time at our wedding, anyone not having a good time at their own wedding is doing it wrong, not sure what that user is talking about.

I’ve noticed Reddit is sort of “anti-wedding” so I’d take what people say about weddings on here with a big grain of salt.

The deal with Costco stuff is generally that people are saying “it’s surprisingly decent quality for how cheap it is.”

It isn’t by any means the highest quality stuff you can find though, you’re going to be disappointed if that’s what you’re looking for. You can get much better pizza in the US than Costco pizza.

There are also large portions of Maine that are consistently stuck below freezing most of the winter. You don’t have constant freeze thaw cycles when it’s always 25 degrees or lower in the winter.

I mean, how much do you think is actually being spent on this? The lawmakers are just getting paid their standard salary anyways and it doesn't sound like much has been done on this topic.

Sure, it's silly that this is taking so long, but it surely isn't a priority and it costs essentially nothing to have these existing lawmakers technically be part of a commission if that commission isn't actively doing anything.

If they were commissioning a bunch of surveys and focus groups, etc. and then not doing anything with the results, then sure, that would be wasting taxpayer money. The $100,000 mentioned in the article was only allocated last week (so it hasn't been used yet) and is a tiny amount of money in the context of a $40 - 50 billion state government budget.

Of all the topics to get mad about regarding government waste, this is not it, it's a miniscule amount of money.

Snow isn't the same thing as cold though. I can believe Boston getting slightly more snow than Toronto, it also gets more snow than Chicago (where I used to live). But Chicago is way worse than Boston for cold, it stays below freezing much more consistently as opposed to the freeze-thaw cycles in Boston that tend to melt snow after a week or two (so a given snowstorm in December sticks around for a couple months in Chicago), and it gets extreme cold below 10 or 0 degrees F much more commonly than Boston does.

Looking at wikipedia, Toronto looks very similar to Chicago in terms of winter climate, so I would say it's a noticeably worse and longer winter than Boston based on my experience in Chicago. Technically Toronto gets slightly less snow, but the difference is marginal, 48 inches per year on average versus 49 inches on average in Boston.

Oh there are still potholes in Chicago. They just get the freeze thaw cycles in November and March more so than in January and February.

Anecdotally, yes. Boston is right on that temperature line in the winter where it's regularly mild enough to have regular thaw cycles as I mentioned. It's more depressing when it goes 3 or 4 weeks without really breaking the freezing point, which can happen in Chicago.

Chicago is also far more prone to extreme cold than either Boston or NYC. It gets cold fronts down out of the Canadian prairies where the air temperature can drop to -15 or -20, and hit -40 or so with wind chill. That's essentially unheard of in either Boston or NYC. It's also not uncommon to get single digit temperatures in Chicago in the winter, whereas in either Boston or NYC those single digit days are rare and only happen a couple times a year.

Personally, Boston winters are much closer to NYC winters than they are to Chicago ones, though they are slightly colder than NYC.

This sounds right, though I will say that Boston ultimately still falls into that coastal constant freeze/thaw style of winter on the whole. We don't always get every thaw that NYC does, but we do get them regularly on a weekly or biweekly basis throughout the winter.

When I lived in Chicago (which is an additional 4 degrees or so on average colder than Boston in the winter), that's a true deep freeze winter where after some point in December realistically you aren't getting any major thaws until early March. It will stay below freezing for weeks on end and it's rare to have enough of a thaw to actually melt any accumulated snow. An average winter day in Boston still tops out at mid to high 30s and there is regular potential to hit low 40s so it's not really like that here.

True, but I was only counting candidates who made the general election. Honestly, since OP said New England generally, Sanders has made a bigger impact in primaries than Warren did.

Yep. There are rumors that part of the reason Baker didn't run was because he saw internal polling showing him losing in the Republican primary to Diehl. He is actually much more favorably viewed by Democrats and people who voted for Biden than he is by Republicans and people who voted for Trump, so it's believable: https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/12/13/charlie-baker-democrat-support/

That said, he's probably also just burnt out after COVID, being a governor during the pandemic must have been brutal.

Romney in 2012 and Kerry in 2004 come to mind, and there was Dukakis in 1988 (but that wasn’t a close race). Actually a pretty decent recent showing for a state the size of MA to have 3 major party presidential candidates make the general election in the last 35 years. But none of them won.

I really don’t see how he’d win the Republican primary. Maybe he could win a couple New England states (though I’m not sure that’s guaranteed), but he is not nearly conservative enough for the national GOP. Even among the non-Trump wing of the party, they are mostly looking for someone very conservative like DeSantis.

Can you imagine Baker backing a “don’t say gay” school bill or pulling a stunt shipping migrants to California? No. And those are the sort of “own the libs” political stunts GOP primary voters love on the national level.

How north is slightly in this case? Jaho in Salem is open until 11pm tonight and has coffee and dessert (pastries, tiramisu, etc.). Not sure if they do pie specifically admittedly.

Agreed. I'd throw Hamilton, Ipswich, and Wenham in there, but these are the sort of towns that will have the woodsy factor while also being close enough to Logan Airport and the city to access them reasonably well. I wouldn't recommend south or west of the city simply because access to Logan seems to be a priority and you don't want to have to go through Boston to get to the airport if you need to access it regularly.

I mean sure. But with $900k they can go somewhere between the 495 and 128 belts and get what they want. That's a very reasonable budget. Especially since OP wants "woodsy" so it's not like they are going to be looking too close to the city, probably outside 128 at a minimum, and further than that if we're talking metrowest.

It depends on how woodsy they want. There are places on the North Shore like Hamilton, Wenham, Topsfield, Ipswich, or even the northern part of Beverly that can get pretty woodsy and are within an hour of Logan. These are not full rural areas of course, but they are woodsy for a suburban area and many houses have woodsy areas abutting their property. I would suggest North Shore or up towards the Merrimack Valley if getting to Logan is a priority. You don't want to be going to Logan regularly from west or south of the city.

I see, that makes sense.

Though I think you could argue that perhaps question 2 wasn't raised by the legislature as it wasn't viewed as a huge deal by many people until it made the ballot. For instance, I am very in favor of question 2 since I work in health policy and feel strongly about the fact dental insurance is essentially a scam as it stands right now. But I can see how many people might rank questions 1 and 4 as being ultimately more impactful questions from a policy perspective.

In terms of what the legislature takes up, it's not just about margin of support, it's about how strongly people feel about the issue as well.

TBF, question 2 was also much less controversial than 1 or 4, whether someone agrees with all three or not.

Anything to do with taxation or immigration can be a bit of a lightning rod. Some regulation for dental insurance is by comparison not particularly contentious, whether the legislature has discussed it or not.