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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 19th, 2023

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  • I think you’re missing the point. Bringing in difficult to obtain weapons as part of the conversation muddies the conversation about controlling the currently ubiquitous weapons being used.

    As an analogy, let’s say someone blows something up and hurts people, using dynamite or homemade explosive using gun powder:

    “Anyone who has access to the dynamite and RPGs and C-4 should be held responsible for what’s done with it!”

    “Wait, there was an RPG or C4? I’m pretty sure outside the military it’s pretty difficult to get ahold of either of those. They’re already heavily regulated.”

    “What difference does it make? They’re explosives used to blow things up and kill people.”

    “Right, but, again, those are heavily regulated, while what happened was with dynamite, which is not.”

    “OH! So it’s OKAY since the dynamite is not as regulated!”

    “No, it’s just a different conversation about RPGs and C4.”

    “Only if you have an agenda!”

    Vs.

    “Anyone who purchases dynamite should be responsible for what happens to it, unless they can show they’ve properly secured it and didn’t give access to it to someone they shouldn’t.”

    “Agreed, dynamite and gunpowder explosives are common and not as regulated as they should be.”


  • I once had a female coworker who was complaining about how she had walked in on a male coworker using the single-occupancy bathroom (peeing, his back was turned to the door), that him not locking the door was somehow inappropriate of him.

    Somebody put a poll up on a white board with the scenario, with question “who behaved inappropriately” with the choices “the person entering the bathroom without knocking” “the person using the bathroom without locking it” “they are both wrong” and “we’re all adults here, get the fuck over it.”

    The tallies were overwhelmingly in the “get the fuck over it” column. But I feel the poll was missing something important: the door had a tendency when locked to stick and leave the person locked inside. We were in a quick-response duty status (as in running to the aircraft), so the person already in should absolutely not have locked it (he was the runner).

    You see a closed door to a room (of relative privacy) that might be occupied, you knock. Simple as.



  • My parents were wonderful, so I have no real complaints, but my father had a weird quirk. Tools, equipment, whatever that he had interest and purchased himself were “his.” I mean, obviously, but he would use the possessive when referring to those things.

    “You have to prime my lawnmower first before you try to start it.” “Go and get my ladder.” Never the ladder, always my ladder. I never questioned it (because I didn’t care), but when I was a teenager I started noticing it and it was odd. Like he was establishing that the lawn mower or the ladder or whatever didn’t belong to the household, they were his. And nothing seemed to get him worked up more than a neighbor borrowing something and taking more than a day or so to return it.



  • Look, I completely agree with the general sentiment, but if you conflate the current illegal theft of agreed-upon and earned wages with what workers deserve to be paid, it doesn’t help the latter argument, it just confuses the former.

    This type of thing is “defund the police” all over again, where the intention is to transfer funds from the police to social services specialized in situations the police shouldn’t be handling in the first place, and then got conflated with the idea of abolishing police. And while the former would have, it seemed, broad support (even among a lot of police who felt ill-equipped and trained to deal with every kind of emergency), the latter immediately turned off a significant portion of people, and conflating the two hurt the entire movement.

    I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a serious focus on wages increasing with profitability, I’m saying don’t use the terminology of a separate problem that needs to be fixed and could have broad support right now.



  • I suppose. I’m far more likely to die in a helicopter crash. Never been shot at, nor have just about anybody I’ve worked with. The only people who have gone to a war zone in the past couple decades were people who specifically requested it.

    Though I have worked with a few who survived helicopter crashes (five, between two crashes), so definitely not without its dangers. That’s the specific job I chose, though. Plenty of jobs in the Coast Guard with paper cuts or oven-related burns as the most danger they’ll experience.






  • Yeah, I’ve been reviewing her record because of all the hate, and I definitely don’t like a former DA as VP/President, but… her record is surprising good from what I can see. She sponsored a ton of good bills, was fairly left-leaning (for a US politician) on the bills she sponsored, and even while a DA/AG she refused to seek the death penalty and tried to work against racist behavior in police (without actually, you know, holding any of them accountable). She wasn’t perfect by any stretch, and she was still a DA who is practically a cop, but she seemed to be one of the better ones (I know, low bar).

    I’m not really understanding all the hate she is getting, even from her own side. The amount of “hold your nose and vote for her” seems out of proportion for her record.





  • At a bagel place I used to go to, the person behind the counter said not to bother leaving a tip on the machine because the owners just took that. I came back the next time with cash and a printout of the law that shows that is considered wage theft and the Department of Labor number to call.