FirstCircle @ FirstCircle @lemmy.ml

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161

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386

Joined

2 yr. ago

Archived version: https://archive.is/3QRjZ

Divine rage.

I worked a breakfast grill at a restaurant as a teen and got pretty good at it. I'll make that kid the most perfect breakfast omelette they've ever eaten. And I'll bring the ingredients if we're short.

Also worked @a food pantry not long ago, warehouse work mostly but I got to see some of the parents and kids who showed up, long lines out into the northern cold, every day we were open, just to get a day or two's worth of something to eat.

Anyone who would means-test a kid out of a free school meal, or deny them altogether, is some kind of sociopath monster.

corporate lobbying, campaign finances, …guns

And the military-industrial-complex, which is sort of all-of-the-above, yeah. It's got waste, corruption, criminality (see Boeing), and "bad finance" (meaning public debt finance of any sort) from top to bottom, through and through, yet Republicans can't get enough of it. Starving a kid is fighting "socialism", but starving a socialized military or a defense offense contractor of a penny .... now that can't be tolerated.

That was a great read. The Onion meets the New Yorker. But how was it free to read? Did Society pay?

Related: Trump’s ‘Lost Cause’ mythmaking.

Just learn to code

Those who can code, these days, are increasingly fearful about their own job prospects. Between large-scale layoffs at tech employers and the rapidly-increasing scope of tech work that "AI" can do (or at least assist with), coding, it's becoming clear, is just another type of labor that's about to be automated into a niche occupation. And tech companies are gleeful at the prospects ... got 1000 programmers paid $200K/yr+benefits? We can do something about that - just buy our Developer As A Service plan, with low, low usage-based pricing! You can cut headcount down to just 100 programmers, or only 50 on the DAAS Pro plan. Slash your labor costs, taxes, and compliance expenses; call today!

Software tech is just the first (white collar) sector to feel the pain of automation. It's already been commodified by "outsourcing" of work to low-cost countries, and automation, AI-based or otherwise, is just the next step to increasing shareholder profits and management bonuses. Ironically, it's developers themselves, so used to jumping on every latest hype-train, who are eagerly facilitating their own demise, trying to appease employers and appear more personally "productive" by integrating the latest "AI" this-or-that into their work. So many of these folks live in very high COL locations, like SF, Seattle, NY and Boston, have property in those areas, and have an identity to a great extent formed from the illusion of having "made it" in their land of tech giants. To go from being the envy of their peers and family, the "winner" with the million-dollar (or much more) house (and accompanying mortgage), private schools, and a garage full of the latest tech-on-wheels, to having no income, no other skills and experience, fading job prospects, little social support, and nowhere to go ... I think it's going to be ugly, for a class of people who aren't used to hardship and who've been sold the "upward mobility" bill-of-goods for many decades now. Suicide will be one way out of it all, likely an increasingly appealing way.

Nice to see the long-ish sentences (not nearly long enough by my standards, but this is MS), but how long do you think before they're all walking the streets again, out on parole, maybe even back drawing a salary at the department? TFA is worth the read.

The Black men were targeted after a neighbor complained about them staying in a white woman's home.

The white deputies beat, tortured, and sexually assaulted the men for hours. Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth when a mock execution went awry, and the officers also planted drugs and guns to try to coverup their actions with false charges. The white lawmen used stun guns and racial slurs, and told Jenkins and Parker to "go back to their side of the river," meaning the majority Black city of Jackson. Rankin County, to the east, is a largely white community.

More details emerged during Tuesday's sentencing hearing on how the "Goon Squad" operated. Prosecutors said it was Lt. Middleton who devised the plan to coverup the raid and the accidental shooting, and that he told his fellow officers if anyone told what really happened, he had no problem having them killed.

I don't see where you're getting that 85% number. Appendix III of the PDF has the data. The numbers don't look good to me (I don't know what would be considered a "normal" capability rate for military aircraft) but they're generally much higher than "15% capable", especially the newer subset of aircraft.

What's more disturbing to me from the PDF is "DOD plans to procure nearly 2,500 F-35s at an estimated life cycle cost of the program exceeding $1.7 trillion. Of this amount, $1.3 trillion are associated with operating and sustaining the aircraft." Those are our taxes (plus vast sums of supposedly "unsustainable" debt), being funneled into the pockets of the MIC and ultimately into the pockets of the wealthy elite, rather than being spent on critical domestic social needs (Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security for ex.) or just being left with the taxpayer.

Well, you know, they have some "very fine people" over there at HF, I've heard it said. Working on stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

From Wikipedia:

In 2005, Gerald R. Ford was estimated to cost at least $13 billion: $5 billion for research and development plus $8 billion to build. A 2009 report raised the estimate to $14 billion, including $9 billion for construction. In 2013, the life-cycle cost per operating day of a carrier strike group (including aircraft) was estimated at $6.5 million by the Center for New American Security.

That $14 billion 2009 dollars is $20.45 billion 2024 dollars, and that's not even counting any overruns. $6.5 million 2009 dollars/day to operate = $9.5 million 2024 dollars per day to operate. And that's just one ship.

Thanks to the MIC and its profiteers we can always afford any sum to "project power" (meaning: threaten other nations we don't like or want to manipulate) but can never, somehow, afford the costs of a basic civilized society here at home - things like Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security - nope too expensive, all must be cut, "unsustainable!"

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Of course they are, all they need are more tax-breaks and gov't handouts! Here, there are private jets flying over, in, and out, all week long, hustling those JoB cREatOrS to and from their Elite Retreats where fellow JoB cREatIoN masterminds convene to plan how to share wealth and improve the lives of their fellow Americans. Corpo jets are expensive to buy/lease/operate, it's only fair that they be subsidized by the taxpayer, isn't it? And no, you're not getting a ride on one, looking like you do, not without a written reference from a billionaire anyway.

second-best time is now

Which is why big companies (incl. big tech) are going all-out to remove the practical ability, or even the legal ability, to do so. ex: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/10/starbucks-trader-joes-spacex-challenge-labor-board

Anecdote: I have been a software dev in networking/internet/web/databases &related since before there was an internet. I occasionally get recruiter spam still, and was shocked to see spams recently from contractor agencies in the Seattle area (meaning, the agency hires you W-2 and pays your salary but you labor at the company they place you at - they bill the client X$ and you get, maybe if you're lucky (X * 0.7)$), offering hourly rates that are less than I was getting (non-inflation-adjusted) as a W-2 contractor in the region back in the 90s. Not only that, but the work was on-site and required the software developer employee be "on call" for long periods. Really shitty-sounding work (client = a rather large, well-known, union-hostile retailer) at a really shitty rate in a super-expensive metro. Yeah, no.

Sounds like a cigar cutter. Small, but popular with billionaires and MAGA cultists for cutting away their tiny intellects and any and all "concern for one's fellow man" growths.

Ugh, hadn't heard about that, need to read the Times more often. Thanks for the link.

I routinely buy big boxes of "extra raisins" raisin-bran at Walmart for less than $4/box, did so today in fact.

Yep, way more crows (and magpies) in my PNW city than I ever saw around in New England years back. But as for wildlife in general, I also have raccoons and skunks coming to my back porch to feed (which I welcome) and have seen deer (incl. a huge-racked buck, foraging at the plantings in a residential yard), bald eagles, and even a moose within city limits, maybe a mile or so from downtown.

Spamgourmet.com

Read the Wikipedia article on the My Lai Massacre, (make sure to look at all the photos) and then lecture me about how I should "support our troops" and about how foreign people hate us for "our freedom". I'm ashamed to say, though I was a kid when it happened and heard the name, I never once looked into it until now. Nobody ever mentions it, it never comes up in the press and surely not in conversation. Americans prefer blissful ignorance and fairy tale justifications for all the evil we do around the world and at home.