Thank you, that makes some sense. I’m from the US, so very much familiar with the ones that are supposed to be representing a more liberal set of positions selling out some of the smaller groups to try and find broader appeal across those party lines. I did see about his backpedaling about acknowledging trans peoples’ genders.

It does often tend to sting a bit more when you get backstabbed by someone who was supposed to at least be sympathetic to your side, rather than someone you knew always disliked you. Streeting seems to have gotten himself into this position of disapproval in a similar way with the trans activists. It’s not like the activists are making threats to him or vowing to fight him forever, they just want to be treated as human beings, and if that happens, there won’t be any more vandalism. Sounds more than fair.

I can’t say I really find fault in what they did here. I’m against a lot of the calls for violent and destructive behavior that has become a daily thing on Lemmy, but from a quick reading up on Streeting, it sounds like other more peaceful means have been ineffectual over the last year+.

Reading TBB’s info, they seem to only support limited damage of property of specific individuals that are causing them to have lives ruined or ended due to a denial of necessary services for political, not medical purposes. Streeting refuses to meet and talk with pro-trans groups, while finding repeated occasions to meet with extreme anti-trans organizations.

As someone in charge of providing health services to the public, Streeting is not serving the people he is sworn to protect and is actively contributing to their harm. Having a window broken, while properly not a legal response, is still significantly less damaging than what Streeting is contributing to. When you leave people with no legal course of action, then they are only left with illegal means of being heard, so he has made things like this inevitable. That the trans activists are limiting themselves to the minimum of disruption while their people are dying says a lot to their patience and reluctance to cause the same harm directed toward them.

For a successful movement, there will always be necessary a group of people being civil, but also a group willing to go to the next level for making those that want to ignore their peaceful voices and to show people cannot just trample all over them. I won’t call it a necessary evil, because I don’t think it is malicious and unrestrained. It is simply people becoming more desperate due to a situation they’ve been backed into.

I was also a bit surprised as someone just learning about Wes Streeting (I’m not UK) that he is an openly gay man who has done a lot to support LG and presumably B, but not the T communities in the past. If it isn’t too off topic or inflammatory to get into, can someone give me a brief explainer why he would be anti-trans? I know trans isn’t the same as gay, so is this just the male version of being a TERF or is there more to it? If this is just ignorant, please ignore this paragraph.

Awesome! I tagged your username for “cool art” for your owl painting a while back, so I was hoping I could hook you up with the title.

Your tribute to the owl spirit has now been repaid! 🦉

The House of Power?

From the creator of the Land of Elyon comes a riveting adventure set in an extraordinary satellite world created as a refuge from a dying Earth that begins to collapse and forever change the lives of its inhabitants. Edgar, a gifted climber, is a lonely boy scaling the perilous cliffs that separate the three realms of Atherton: a humble fig grove; a mysterious highland world of untold beauty and sinister secrets; and a vast wasteland where he must confront an unspeakable danger that could destroy the people of Atherton. When Edgar discovers a book which contains the history of Atherton’s origins and ultimate apocalypse, his world quite literally begins to turn inside out.

These guys are much quieter than they are capable of being, and I appreciate that immensely since their pen takes a good while to clean.

Our indoor bird area is in the basement, and with the concrete walls, those catbirds and cowbirds are so dang loud in addition to whoever else may be down there. Bird room is loud and hectic, and while I love the birdies, the environment makes it next to impossible for me to enjoy for very long.

At least partly!

This one is probably the one we fed by hand inside from when it was little, so it’s more used to us. The others are a bit more skittish.

It was the cutest thing when I discovered it still begged! Now I can always pick this one out.

On occasion one of my bluejays will sit in the tree and do the Feed Me dance and squawks if it thinks it requires a peanut.

They are smart birds, these corvids, trying to take advantage of our emotions for a quick snack. 😁

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Looks cute. Protect the water voles too!

I agree! More live minks for me is a good thing!

So elegant!

I need to get back into it. After doing it for a couple months, my flexibility and range of motion was really increased.

Some positions are hard and it can be discouraging at first, which is what made my SO quit doing it with me, but if you stick with it you can really start to notice progress.

I used the Down Dog app which is really customizable and it goes on sale for Black Friday for $20/yr instead of the normal $100/yr or $13/mo. It comes as a whole suite of apps but I haven’t used the others besides the meditation one much. I want to try the Pilates one too if I can get off my butt.

That sounds good!

Cheerwine is some tasty stuff, and for the most part it isn’t readily available in my part of the country, so it always feels like a special treat when I do find it.

Otherwise A-Treat is out local soda brand, and their Sasparilla and Birch Beer are the taste of my childhood.

That seems true. I don’t normally think that deep about it since my investment strategy is hands off. I’m really just paying Vanguard and Fidelity to buy bits and pieces of their shares.

I guess I just don’t like Elon and his type having anyone’s money and I don’t like me being able to link myself to them even if it’s a few steps removed.

I agree with this for 99% of personal investors, but this sounds like what OP is already doing. They’re looking for something that goes further to support their beliefs.

It bothers me to a minor extent to technically contribute to some of these companies. I’m sure most of them do plenty of evil like polluting, wage theft, shady practices, etc. That’s how they get on the SP500 I assume.

I see it as rather capturing the US economy as a whole (or general representation of) and no one is picking favorites, it’s just that these are the x biggest traded companies right now. If one drops off, another replaces it. There’s no ethical decisions in the choice of companies that make up a market index other than to invest in it or not.

My ethical choice is prioritizing providing for me and my spouse in old age, and as we have no children, it’s up to us to ensure we have that, and this is what I felt was the most responsible decision to achieve that.

Like you alluded to, I invest in my community by volunteering, and I try to avoid as much consumerism as possible, especially from known shitty companies.

No personal experience with it, but a little searching turned up M1 Finance. They’ve been around for 10 years and I see lots of search results for them, so there’s at least some legitimacy.

You set up what they call a “pie” made up of “slices”. It’s a pie chart of your stock and fund choices. You can buy partial shares and it looked like you can buy both funds and individual stocks. No idea if there are minimums, I saw some comments saying they don’t have every fund, limited or no bonds, etc, etc.

But you set up your pie, set up automatic investment (you can also do manual or fund just a single slice in a transaction, or various other options), and then it automatically distributes across your pie to the percentages you indicate.

Depending how many slices you plan to set up, it may take a while, but it seems to be a way to do what you want if you’re willing to determine all the specific things you want.

I don’t have any experience with it, but would fiver be along the lines of what you’re looking for?