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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)B
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2 yr. ago

  • Cox did this with my dad, fucked around and found out. To this day, if you bring up Cox Cable, my dad goes, "OH, you mean the company I was a loyal customer to for 32 years, 10 months, and 17 days?!"

    He had one of those cable-internet-landline bundles and was paying something like $150/month for it, something about he just had to call every renewal or something like that. Well, him and my mom fell on some hard times and forgot/missed a payment/something happened with Cox.

    My dad gets the bill the next month, and it says his package is now $300/month (or something ridiculous like that). He calls Cox and wants to know what's up, why his bill doubled in a month, etc They told him he missed his renewal and thus his promotional price was lost, and now he's got to do the regular price. He explains what's been going on and how they're doing their best, they want to remain a customer, but they're not paying $300/month for something they were paying $150/month for.

    Cox refused to budge, offering a like $25/month discount at best. So my dad goes, "So, I just want to understand... If I was a new customer creating a new account, you'd give me my old rate? And if I hadn't missed the thing last month, you'd give me my old rate?" Correct. "So my being a customer of yours for over 32 years... That gets me nothing?!" That's correct, Sir, so would you like to renew, make any changes, or make a payment?

    "Oh, you can close the account, I'll be dropping off your equipment in about 3 hours, thank you." And they still argued with my dad, I think they moved up to $50/month discount, and he just told them to kick rocks, he would rather have no internet, cable, or telephone, than give Cox his money ever again. And to this day, he refuses to recommend Cox to anyone, and tells them to check his file whenever they call or come to the door trying to get him to come back.

  • I personally believe we should have the right to die, moreso as an individual choice than one a relative should make. We as individuals, who did not consent to living in this absolutely broken society, should have every right to just say one day, "Y'know what, I've had enough, I'm done." This comment will likely be controversial, and I am not encouraging anyone to commit suicide, seek help where and how you can, suicide can be a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

    A friend of mine told me once she considered those who commit suicide (outside of terminal illness) to be cowards, taking the "easy" way out and leaving their loved ones to suffer. I argued back that how is it unacceptable for loved ones to suffer, but it's perfectly acceptable for the individual to suffer to keep the loved ones comfortable? And that's what mental health (tin foil hat time) is entirely about: not comfort for the individual, but comfort for the society.

    It doesn't matter if you are completely disenfranchised with society, struggling to make ends meet, working multiple jobs with no benefits, eating the same meal 2-3 times a day every day to save money, none of that matters because you're not contributing to society/capitalism they way you're supposed to. When the VA was trying to force me onto SSRIs despite my objections due to the side effects they can have, I told them flat out I wasn't taking a pill just so I could be "productive" for a society that will let me die in the streets at the earliest and cheapest convenience. And no "pill" is going to fix how sick and broken we are as a society.

    We as a species weren't designed for this kind of society, we're an analog species trying to adapt to a digital world we haven't had time to properly adjust to. We aren't designed to work 40 hours/week, 8 hours/day, 50+ weeks per year. We aren't designed to work ourselves to exhaustion and forego social interactions in the pursuit of more money to try and keep the lights on. And we are watching the largest transfer of wealth to the ultra-wealthy, making the Gilded Age look like child's play.

    So I guess, to sum it up: I think everyone should have the right to end their own life, regardless of the reason, but I don't believe anyone should have the right to end someone else's life outside of already-established practices (DNR orders, "pulling the plug" as PoA, etc). We are too broken as a society to trust ourselves to choose when others should die, but we should absolutely be allowing individual's to end their own lives.

  • Criticism should be constructive, they offered nothing constructive in their criticism.

  • It's sitting on my bookshelf. 😆 Haven't read it yet, but I do own it.

    I recommend checking out ThriftBooks over Amazon, they sell new and used books, and they're not Amazon 😆

  • There are no stocks or profit sharing to make money on via USPS for the board of directors. They receive a salary, and I'm sure they receive bonuses based on performance (not the board level, per se, but postmasters and supervisors can).

    USPS is actually a national treasure that we should be very proud of. Representatives of USPS went to Germany several years back to teach them how to efficiently institute 6-day delivery. Our "snail mail" service taught the Germans how to do something more efficiently.

    Ass the other commenter said, USPS doesn't receive any taxpayer funding, all of their revenue comes from the sale of postage and their other services like PO boxes and such. They actually used to offer basic banking services too, back in the day, but not anymore.

    The retirement funding they referenced was for employees who weren't even hired yet. Thanks to an act passed under Bush Jr, USPS had to pre-fund 75 years worth of pensions, and they were (and are) the only government agency to have that funding requirement levied on them. Simultaneously, USPS cannot change the cost of postage, only Congress can do that, so for almost 2 decades we were forcing USPS to fund 75 years of pensions while not allowing them to set their own postage rates.

    If you want to know why USPS is the way it is rather than the Department of Mail like it used to be, I'd start with the Postal Strike of 1970. Thousands of NYC carriers went on strike after being denied a raised while Congress gave themselves one, Nixon called in the national guard to deliver the mail (and they failed spectacularly), and in return for giving up the right to strike, the Dept. Of Mail was reorganized into the USPS. (If I'm remembering all my history right, it's been a few years, I used to be a carrier.)

  • The military and the VA offer gender affirming care, and what they offer varies.

    For instance (I'm going off memory for active duty, I got out in 2017), if you're active duty, I believe they'll pay for everything so long as you lay out in your Transition Plan everything you want covered and your commanding officer approves it. You need "approval" to ensure that your absence during medical recovery won't hinder mission readiness, so basically, if you're about to be deployed in a month for 6 months, and you're supposed to have gender affirming surgery tomorrow with a multi-month recovery, your surgery will likely be postponed.

    The VA, which is for veterans, covers a majority of gender affirming care, but they aren't legally allowed to cover everything. GRS/SRS is the big on, the military will cover that I believe, but the VA cannot and will not.

    With Trump coming in, I have a feeling this is all going to go away, and they're going to use a similar approach as the Federal Minimum Drinking Age Act to basically make LGBTQ+ healthcare illegal via withholding federal funding from those states who try to continue after a federal ban. "The states can choose their drinking age gender affirming care, but those who don't follow the federal guidelines will lose access to XYZ federal funding."

  • What's even crazier is that, in the modern US military, less than 1% of the population serves in the military.

    There are also more NYPD cops than there are active duty Coast Guard personnel.

  • most gun owners seem completely incapable of doing so.

    You got a source for "most" gun owners being "completely incapable of doing so?"

    Cause I've yet to see a study that says any of what you said above.

  • I would say rightfully, yes.

  • Yep! Told my family that once they strip me of my disability, I will be priced-out of society: I won't be able to afford my house anymore, I won't be able to afford my bills, and I will likely lose everything. And I'll likely have nothing to live for.

    They tell me I'm overreacting and that there are "checks and balances" in place to prevent them from doing that stuff. I just point at Roe v Wade and they tend to change the subject.

  • I got out in 2017 partially because I'm trans and Trump was coming into the oval office. He had made it clear that trans people would not be welcome in his military, and I wasn't going to risk being discharged because of President Bone Spurs.

    The military held him off last time, but I'm not as hopeful this time. And I just wanted to throw out there: I personally believe the GOP is going to use federal funding to essentially strip LGBTQ+ people of their rights and healthcare access. It's going to be the Minimum Federal Drinking Age Act of 1984 again, where the fed is gonna say, "Sure, you can offer gender affirming care in your state... If you do, you won't have access to XYZ federal funding anymore."

    And the states will let it happen.

  • Ringo Starr: "And Henry would stay there, forever and for always. I think Henry got the punishment he deserved... Don't you?"

    Thomas the Tank Engine music plays as credits roll

  • Guess the gloves are coming off, god damn...

  • Hell, they'll probably make us pay back the economic impact payments we got during the last pandemic.

  • Did the Confederacy actually lose, though? Or did the Union just suffer a pyrrhic victory?

    Edit: Just saying, the Confederacy lost but their flag is still flown on the state flag of Mississippi, Reconstruction didn't go far enough and failed, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, segregation, civil rights movement opposition, systemic and societal racism is still rampant and accepted (Trump), hell, the "state's rights" arguments is still one of the first reasons people give for the cause of the Civil War. Fuck, we still have legal slavery via our prison system.

    So... Did the Confederacy actually lose? Cause they're ideology, beliefs, and the consequences of their hate is still rampant, and we're still dealing with their bullshit.

  • they'll just turn those services over to private companies that receive tax dollars for providing pretending to provide that service to the public.

    Ftfy

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  • But Hamas settled in Israeli land, robbing it from Israeli families who held it for generations!

    Wait, that was Israel settling Palestinian land...

    But Hamas has spent decades walling off Israeli neighborhoods, essentially creating ghettos where residents may be restricted from leaving their own homes and are essentially isolated from the world and their communities!

    Wait, that was Israel again...

    But Hamas has been treating Israeli's as second class citizens, throwing their garbage onto their heads from the streets above, and forcing them to live under military-law with no protections since Israelis aren't citizens of Hamas!

    Wait... That was Israel, again...

    But Hamas killed over 43,000 Israelis over the course of the last year in response to Israel killing 1200 of their citizens and taking several hundred more hostage!

    Fuck, that was Israel too... Shit.

  • really though, he's changed the course entirely on anti trust. these are the first meaningful anti trust cases since the 90s. it's actually a huge deal.

    And how long after Trump takes office will Biden's anti-trust cabinet members be ousted and their decisions reversed?

    And assuming they aren't, in what meaningful way does the average American benefit from Google, a multi-billion dollar corporation, being forced to sell one part of their business? You're going to say, "Well, innovation won't be hampered like it was with telecommunication under AT&T, and this is a step in the right direction!"

    But Walmart hasn't been broken up, or Amazon who have their hands in every pot from online retail to internet infrastructure to server and cloud hosting to DoD contracts, or any of the other sectors that we've watched slip into monopolies and duopolies over the last couple decades.

    If you asked the average American, would they even know who Kahn is? Or that the FTC is even going after Google for Chrome? And if they don't, why couldn't the Biden admin effectively communicate that?

    Because they get money from the same donors, the same monopolies that they're "busting up."

    the true power of the president is in appointments.

    Good thing Biden put Garland in the AG seat, couldn't have found a better neoliberal centrist to slow-walk criminal proceedings against a treasonous former president for attempting a coup on national television. Or is Garland not part of Biden's legacy because it's a bad part.

    Biden failed his country, because he lives in a completely different one, and has his entire life. He's a career politician who helped enact a lot of the policies the DNC champions today despite their unpopularity and blatant failure rate (keep reaching across that aisle, Joe, I'm sure the GOP will be willing to compromise and act in good faith any day now).

    And you know what the biggest indicator is that Biden, the DNC, and Harris, failed our country? They lost to fascism. If Americans saw meaningful progress over the past four years, and if the DNC is so much better than the GOP, why did they lose? Again.

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  • From the party that just rubbed elbows with every Cheney to try and shore up moderate-Republican votes for "I have a Glock" Harris?

  • I like how Jon Stewart put it this week:

    "Republicans rely on loopholes, while Democrats rely on norms."

    His whole thing this week was begging the Democrats to fight, to start getting dirty, throwing punches, to basically just not roll over.

    But he kept reiterating the Dems need to get over the norms, they need to stop relying on the norms. He cited the hypocrisy of not approving Garland, but rushing through Amy Coney Barrett, and showed how the Dems brought McConnell's own words to the floor of the Senate.

    "And thus, Amy Coney Barrett, head hung, was forced to return to her homestead in-- Wait, what's that? They didn't give a fuck?!"

    Or the Parliamentarian not allowing something Biden proposed to move forward, and Biden just rolled over. "Oh, uh, we didn't know about that rule."

    I'm incredibly disappointed too, they're supposed to fight for us, regardless of circumstances, and we get... The response we get. I completely agree the GOP and Trump were telling us they were going to steal it, and had precedent that clearly tried to last time, and the Dems just... Accepted it. The GOP launched dozens of lawsuits and recounts over handfuls of ballots, but the Dems have just moved on despite these statistical anomalies.

    Not a great way to maintain your already waning support among your voting base: telling them they need to fight and support them in their fight, and then they just stop fighting.