TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I assume this is one of those things that varies depending on the population. Find a hipster old folks' home and it'll all be craft brews.

Brawnfire posted:

You been to the Hospice Hideaway on South Ave? They've got half-price Intravenous Pale Ales on your deathday.

Carthag Tuek posted:

tbf everything is free the day you die

SodomyGoat101 posted:

Stiff your loved ones with the bills.

Soul Dentist posted:

My mother in law works in elder care and beer is both a prescription and a reward for good behavior. Budweiser is generally the preferred brand of dementia patients, fyi

Carbon dioxide posted:

Alcohol is only the only known way to save someone from dying from methanol poisoning.

The liver has a lot of trouble getting rid of methanol, and alcohol basically dilutes the methanol, giving it some breathing room.

You need absolute huge amounts for the dilution to work and other than killing you and making you blind, methanol itself is known for giving you a horrible hangover. I bet the alcohol doesn't help with that.

Such Fun posted:

Trotting out ‘fun facts’ is the only use I still get out of my microbiology bachelor. So drat right I’m gonna hit people over the head when I get the chance.

(actually, sorry if I came off as pedantic or belligerent)

(also, lol at having just a microbiology bachelor. It’s like owning a bike without wheels)

Carthag Tuek posted:

YALLL NEED A_NOTHER DRINK _NO NO

e: dont worry about it, this latter sentence from the heart not the one above

Such Fun posted:

Friend, are you alright?

Carbon dioxide posted:

Alcohol is only the only known way to save someone from dying from methanol poisoning.

Such Fun posted:

Having so much alcohol in your blood that it’s in some way diluting your blood will absolutely kill you dead 100%.

Such Fun posted:

(also, lol at having just a microbiology bachelor. It’s like owning a bike without wheels)

Brawnfire posted:

You been to the Hospice Hideaway on South Ave? They've got half-price Intravenous Pale Ales on your deathday.

Wipfmetz posted:

Maybe there's a joke going over my head, but then again I guess hospices know how to handle imminent deaths.

But how would that work. Does some nurse come around, chirping "Oh, hey, hallo. My papers here say that your death is scheduled for today. That means beer is half price for you, congratulations!"?

[Edit: There's also a follow-up question: what happens if somebody misses their scheduled deathday? Would the hospice ensure a punctual death? ]

Wipfmetz posted:

[Edit: There's also a follow-up question: what happens if somebody misses their scheduled deathday? Would the hospice ensure a punctual death? ]

Such Fun posted:

No, that would be euthanasia. I had a conversation with a palliative care nurse practitioner once, and the difference between euthanasia and palliative care is a very technical one (at least where I live.) It’s very explicitly defined though, and I don’t believe a scheduled deathday would be legal palliative care.

Soul Dentist posted:

I'm also pretty sure it was just a joke

DeadlyMuffin posted:

Someone doing assisted dying may have a scheduled death day. It's every bit as hosed up as you'd think.

Wipfmetz posted:

Maybe there's a joke going over my head, but then again I guess hospices know how to handle imminent deaths.

But how would that work. Does some nurse come around, chirping "Oh, hey, hallo. My papers here say that your death is scheduled for today. That means beer is half price for you, congratulations!"?

[Edit: There's also a follow-up question: what happens if somebody misses their scheduled deathday? Would the hospice ensure a punctual death? ]

Alhazred posted:

Mary Frith/Moll Cutpurse (1584-1659)
She began as a pickpocket which earned her the nickname Cutpurse. She was was then arrested for wearing men's clothes. At her trial Frith admitted to flaunting her male attire, blaspheming and swearing, being a drunkard, and keeping lewd and dissolute company, including cutpurses. After that she started a business where she paid thieves to bring her stolen goods that the owners could then buy back. Finally she was tried for shooting and robbing a general during the civil war. Allegedly she paid a bribe of 2000 pounds to escape the gallows.
After that she was admitted to Bethlem Hospital because the whole ordeal had made her insane. She recovered though and started a brothel with only male prostitutes. She's also considered the first british female pipesmoker.

Alhazred posted:

Mary Frith/Moll Cutpurse (1584-1659)
She began as a pickpocket which earned her the nickname Cutpurse. She was was then arrested for wearing men's clothes. At her trial Frith admitted to flaunting her male attire, blaspheming and swearing, being a drunkard, and keeping lewd and dissolute company, including cutpurses. After that she started a business where she paid thieves to bring her stolen goods that the owners could then buy back. Finally she was tried for shooting and robbing a general during the civil war. Allegedly she paid a bribe of 2000 pounds to escape the gallows.
After that she was admitted to Bethlem Hospital because the whole ordeal had made her insane. She recovered though and started a brothel with only male prostitutes. She's also considered the first british female pipesmoker.

Skios posted:

The Netherlands owes its first law limiting child labour to a horse getting spooked. Baron Francis David Schimmelpenninck, a conservative member of parliament, got thrown by his horse on his way to vote against the law. As a result, the law passed with a 50-49 majority (a 50-50 tie would mean the law wouldn't have passed), and the good baron was immortalized in the following rhyme:

Baron Schimmelpenninck en zijn Biek
doen beiden aan politiek.
De baron zei:“Tegen zonder manco”.
De schimmel zei:“wij stemmen blanco”.
Zo werd Borghesius’ wet
door paardenpolitiek gered.

(Baron Schimmelpennick and his Horse
Both practice politics.
The baron said ‘Nay without hesitation.’
His grey horse said: ‘We’re voting blank.’
And that is how Borghesius’ law
Was saved by a horse’s politics.)

The baron would forever be tied to the saying “Het paard verstandiger dan de meester” (The horse is wiser than the master). He retired from active politics a year later, taking on mostly symbolic jobs, like chamberlain in special service to crown princess Wilhelmina.

The same scenario played out in 2016. The centrist liberal party D66 introduced a law creating an opt-out system for organ donation (similar to the system in several European countries, after passing your organs become available for donation by default, unless you have registered your objections or your immediate family objects). The law passed 75 votes to 74, because a member of parliament of the alt-right Putinist party FvD missed his train.

quote:

In the 18th century, several women, whose fate in other respects was likely to pass unnoticed, chose to disguise themselves as men and live as such for long periods of their lives. Studies carried out by scholars in Sweden, The Netherlands and England reveal a few dozens of cross-dressing women in each country. This article presents four, maybe five similar cases from Denmark.

In 1714, Sidsel Andersdatter, aged 34, after two childbirths and a subsequent career as wet-nurse, changed her gender identity. She married a young woman, whom she – under secret circumstances – had assisted during pregnancy and delivery and in having the woman’s child registered as legitimately born. Pretending to be male, Sidsel joined the Navy as a cook. The next four years she participated in several naval battles with Sweden. When at home during winter breaks in military activity, she behaved as a man, had herself shaved, carried a rapier and frequented alehouses. After the war, her marriage soured and she left Copenhagen to work as a farmhand. Her wife divorced her and married a better off ship’s clerk. After a while, Sidsel returned to Copenhagen and worked as a tailor until 1728, when her sex was publicly disclosed after she had been leading a man’s life for 14 years. The court sentenced her to two years of hard labour on grounds of the false marriage and on suspicion that a horn she carried, allegedly using it to pee through, had in fact been used as a dildo.

Else Kortzdatter disguised herself as a boy at the time of pubescence and worked with nightmen on Zealand. In 1731, 21 years old, she disclosed herself and married an older nightman in the town of Køge.

Engelbrecht Maria Stockenbeck, aged 20, after being married in Copenhagen, left her husband and went to Holstein, where she disguised herself as a man and took up the profession of a tailor. Over a period of three years, she moved between many different places in Northern Germany and Jutland as a travelling journeyman. After returning to Copenhagen in 1784 her sex was disclosed. She then applied for and was awarded a royal privilege which allowed her, despite being a woman, to work as a tailor and employ a journeyman.

The same year an account of her adventures was published. In the booklet, she told with pleasure of victorious tavern brawls and spoke highly of the solidarity between travelling journeymen. When she once again assumed a female identity, Engelbrecht Maria maintained both the masculine (Engelbrecht) and the feminine (Maria) marker in her name, even though her baptismal name appears to have been Ellen Maria. In the following years she resumed the life of a travelling journeyman, including such lifestyle features as frequenting taverns, only now as a woman. Several times during her travels, she had confrontations with local authorities who disbelieved her claim of a royal privilege to perform an otherwise exclusively male occupation. Her husband filed for divorce after her return to Copenhagen and provided solid proof to the court that Engelbrecht Maria lived with another man, whom she apparently had been bossing around. There are indications that she gave birth to several children.

Finally, the tailor and pauper Liebenberg Petersen was discovered to be a woman in 1839, at about the age of 80. She had lived in a village in Jutland for 30 years, first with her wife, who had died 15 years prior to the disclosure. Her remains were now exhumed and examined, corroborating an earlier suspicion that it was really a male person. Thus, Liebenberg and wife had both lived under reversed gender identities. Liebenberg refused to reveal her own past identity or any details about the disguise of the couple. Witnesses reported that Liebenberg, who had a sharp tongue, used to chew and smoke tobacco and take a drink, habits her wife would never engage in.

The research in female early modern transvestism has explained the phenomenon partly with the social advantages provided by male status, such as better wages and employment opportunities as well as personal freedom and freedom to travel, partly with sexual attraction to other women. The cases that are analysed in the present study likewise emphasize the social motives to assume a male identity. However, the other presumed motive, the possibility to court and marry other women, corresponds less smoothly with the evidence and is at any rate a gross simplification. Rather, the cross-dressing women did not feel at home in the traditional gender and sexual dichotomies. Even when showing heterosexual preferences, they were nevertheless attracted by the comportment and lifestyle of men.

Brawnfire posted:

Wipfmetz posted:

[Edit: There's also a follow-up question: what happens if somebody misses their scheduled deathday? Would the hospice ensure a punctual death? ]