We were taught about it, but most Americans don’t view westward expansion with the same… Reverence? Notoriety?
Like, I remember learning about it across multiple grades, but… Oregon City being the final destination, that’s not something I would probably remember a year or two later, nevermind a decade or more.
Three Mile Island, and they want to do it to power their AI development. Not move their current servers and infrastructure to the nuclear power grid.
And the owner of Three Mile Island, who’s working with Microsoft, is trying to get the fed to give him the money needed to get the plant running again. Taxpayer money for Microsoft’s AI project that they’ll reap all the reward from.
I’ve seen billboards for one of those “Have you been in a motorcycle/car accident?!” law offices and it’s one of the lawyers squaring off with Tyson.
I’ve had so many questions: Did Tyson actually agree to do that? How much did they pay for him to do that? Is this law office illegally using his image? Do these offices usually have these kinds of celebrity-endorsement funds just lying around?
And then, it’s like, why Tyson?! Like, yeah, he’s probably one of the most well known boxers, but… He’s a rapist, and when someone asks me to name a celebrity to endorse lawyers, the first name that comes to mind isn’t “Mike Tyson, obvi.”
It’s just so weird all around.
Yep, and I have friends who have a lot of their social events and stuff there. I usually politely decline if I’m invited.
I wasn’t fired, but I resigned from a brewery/coffee shop I worked at after only 7 shifts. Context: I’m trans and in the closet still.
Hired as a cook for this brewery, and based on the interview, I’m one of the more “experienced” cooks on the team, and they (owners) were hoping I’d be able to help make the kitchen more professional. It’s a part-time gig, so sure, I’ll do what I can.
Well, the kitchen was too small for the facility. They would have to stop taking orders on busy nights an hour before close because they didn’t have the space to get through the 40+ orders that came in within 5 minutes of each other. Orders from both the bar, the cafe they had, and to go orders.
They’re menu was fine, surprisingly, they didn’t stretch themselves too thin. But the staff were… Rough. The kitchen supervisor couldn’t believe I owned a chef’s coat, nevermind actually showed up to work in one since everyone just wore t-shirts (no aprons, as far as I could find). I told the owners they should have chef coats, it’s a safety thing, etc, idk if that ever happened.
Anyway, the kitchen supe would spend 90% of the shift video chatting with various friends/family/etc during his shift, loudly dropping the n-word every other word while we’re cooking and cleaning and prepping. All on the line, not even in an office or something, in the middle of the kitchen. I’ve had managers who are lazy, that’s fine, but I’ve never had one that unprofessional.
There were like 2-3 shifts though where the bulk of the conversation amongst the kitchen staff were LGBTQ+ focused: I’m not sure I could love my daughter if she was a lesbian, I don’t understand this stuff, it’s a mental illness, trans people, etc. If it had happened once, fine, whatever. But over 2-3 different shifts, and the supervisor is taking part? No, I’m not cool with that.
My last shift, I’m annoyed and pretty over my coworkers based on their views I got to listen to, but trying to just get through it. I’m working the deep fryer, reheating some chicken wings. Pull the basket up and grab the thermometer to temp them when the supervisor calls over, “Oh, no, you don’t need to temp those, they’re already cooked!”
I pulled him aside after and asked him about that, and he goes, “Yeah, we already cooked them to 165°F before we cooled and stored them. You’ve just gotta get em heated up again, you don’t have to temp them.”
I send an almost 2-page long resignation to the owners the next day, explaining that I did not appreciate the conversations taking place in the kitchen and the opinions about people my coworkers had, people who may very well he standing in the room with them.
But I really harped on the fact that the kitchen supervisor, the supervisor, didn’t seem to be familiar with health code policies. Any good that’s already been cooked and then cooled must be brought back to 165°F when being reheated, that’s, like, one of those food safety things every pro cook should know, nevermind a supervisor.
I advised they may want to send their supervisors for food safety retraining before they made a customer sick, and that there were too many issues within the kitchen for me to help them without basically cleaning house and starting over.
Seriously, look at the beauty standards and treatments of the Victorian era.
Women would squeeze citric acid in their eyes because they believe it cleaned them and whitened them, and the burning sensation was just the germs being cleaned.
You’re being down voted because your entire reply sounds like, “Well, if you’re depressed, have you tried being happy?”
“Unhappy” could be because your basic needs aren’t being met, or you don’t have enough time/energy outside of your two jobs to pursue any happiness. Or you could have just been broken up with, or lost a loved one. Or you’re disenfranchised with your government, you don’t feel represented, you’ve just lost to fascism. Or it could be chemical imbalances in your brain leading to a variety of potential mental health issues, or simply being neurodivergent. Or you could be LGBTQ+ in a place where it isn’t safe to be that, or you don’t have rights, or you are outright illegal.
Telling anyone living under those or similar circumstances to “just be content” is just insulting. Being “content” doesn’t put food on the table or a roof over your head, and it doesn’t improve the quality of your life under a system designed to destroy as much of your quality of life as possible.
Telling someone who is struggling to be neurodivergent in a world designed by and for people who are neurotypical, what contentedness are they supposed to find in life being a daily struggle in ways they may not even be able to explain, or that sound unreasonable to the average neurotypical.
Where is someone with mental/physical health issues but no access to health insurance or healthcare supposed to find contentedness in that situation?
Notice how in a lot of my examples, “happy” is more closely aligned to “comfortable” than it is “overfilled with joy and ecstasy every waking moment of the day.” You can’t tell people to be content when they’re uncomfortable, especially when that discomfort is likely a result of basic needs not being met.
No, to the point where I’ve had a few friends and family members offer to buy me decorations (or they’ll text me of ones on sale), and I always turn them down.
Halloween, I’ll put out a pumpkin if I’m feeling frisky, but that’s about it. Christmas, I’ve considered getting a tree, and had a roommate that had a really small plastic one with two ornaments that’d we’d put out.
But they’re too expensive, they’re too much work to put up/take down (especially outside in the snow), they take up too much room both while in use and in storage, my dog would probably fuck with them or be afraid of them (Halloween), they drive electricity use and cost up, they can be stolen, they can increase fire risk, I normally live alone so it’d only be for my dog and I, the list goes on.
I tell friends/family, particularly for Christmas since many of them can’t believe I just don’t do decorations, that I draw a Christmas tree on a piece of paper and tape it to my wall every year. Costs $0.05 in ink, paper, and tape, and 5 minutes to put up and take down. Easily movable, lightweight, efficient.
What do you want them to do, unlock and get back in the car, restart it, put it in reverse, reverse a couple feet, put it in park, and shut the car off before having to close the door and lock it again?!
My guy, they already got out of the car, like… 🤷♀️
/s
It’s the Dems fault.
Their constituents wanted progressive policies, they wanted change, and when asked what Harris would change or do differently from Biden in her administration, she said “Nothing.”
Their constituents asked them to meet in the middle on the Palestinian genocide, and they were told there was no compromise, fascism/democracy was on the line and it was too important, etc.
And then the Dems began trying to court Republican votes, began parading Republicans alongside themselves at campaign rallies, all while moving further center-right and aligning closer to Biden’s centrist policies.
The Dems told their voters they were unwilling or unable to compromise on the policies the electorate wanted, but then extended their hand across the aisle and called for Republican support, while compromising on the already-barely-left policies Harris had and making them closer to the center…
And the voters stayed home. 11 million people chose “No thanks” versus voting for or against a candidate. Way too many Americans voted for Trump, absolutely, fuck em.
But a lot of people looked at their options and didn’t see a substantial enough difference to bother voting. That tells us more about the Dems and their incredibly unpopular platform among their electorate, and how their campaign strategy of “just be slightly less Republican” isn’t winning Republicans to their side, but it is disenfranchising their own progressive base.
Who I think just made it clear they’d rather not vote than keep being told to plug their nose and wait for progress that just isn’t coming.
Why’d the cookie go to the hospital?
He was feeling crummy!
What’d the envelope say to the stamp?
Stick with me, kid, we’ll go places.
DNC Leadership: Is “left” your people’s way of saying “status quo?”
I’ve been saying the entitlement thing since the midterms! You’re not entitled to someone’s vote just because the other option is fascism.
And this entitlement has turned a large part of eligible voters apathetic. What difference does it make if you vote if you’re always just voting for the lesser evil? If you’re never actually represented in the people you’re forced to choose between?
If you’re going to be fucked either way, what difference does it make if the party in power is fascist or not?
And yep, plenty of people today telling me I’m the problem, despite the fact I voted for Harris. I just am also not naive enough to think the average American should be impressed by the lackluster campaign she just ran, and the Democrats botched on the whole.
No one can argue Trump didn’t get things done. He got a lot done, especially when you compare that to the perception people have of the Biden administration.
But I brought this up earlier: Trump may hate his followers, absolutely loathe them, but he still panders to them, even if it’s fake promises. He accomplishes things they want done, and shows he can make progress, something the Democrats botch literally anytime they get any semblance of power. Trump makes his constituents feel heard.
The Democrats, just, don’t. Everyone on Lemmy I’m sure has seen people offering criticism of Biden/Harris, and the response has been to immediately insult, scold, condescend, and shame the individual for not towing the party line. Your concerns, anxieties, hangups, none of that matters because fascism bad so stfu and vote and also fuck you anyway.
Trump’s supporters ask him to abolish vaccines, and he seriously considers it.
Harris’ supporters ask her to not support a genocide in Palestine, and she sends Bill Clinton to lecture them about why Israel has the right to do what they’re doing.
It’s a two-way street, the politicians just can’t keep demanding our votes and ignoring our issues. And if that’s what they’re going to do, then congratulations, you’ve turned your voting base apathetic, and you deserve to lose to fascism.
If they just flagrantly broke the law and kept doing it until the SCOTUS and others actually stopped them, the dems would be far more popular than just throwing their hands up and saying "better things aren’t possible.
This is basically what FDR did with a lot of his social and work programs during his presidency. He’d establish an agency or authority or whatever, regardless of the legality, and by the time the court’s or whoever made the decision to close it, they’d have 5 others going simultaneously, and/or they’d make another one. And the process would start all over again.
What the fuck happened?
Four years of a milquetoast, centrist Democrat telling the American people what they’re living isn’t the actual reality of the situation. Biden’s admin kept rolling out the “soft landing, economy is doing great,” schtick despite numerous news outlets reporting Americans don’t feel like it’s an economy working for them.
Then that Democrat finally stepping aside, too late for his constituents to have a say in who they want representing them. And then she ran on a centrist, return-to-the-status-quo platform that didn’t inspire the majority of Americans, who are so apathetic based on decades of being ignored by politicians they just don’t vote. Because what’s the point?
Only thing I’ll disagree with you here is the machinist comment. My dad’s been a machinist for like 45 years now, same industry, same building.
He is constantly complaining to me that they can’t find machinists, or even people who are willing to learn. I have zero machining experience, and he was trying to get me hired at one point, that’s how desperate they were getting.
And it’s not a bad company, to be clear, they’re a government contractor, have very good benefits, competitive pay (he’s even complained they’ve given guys with a year’s experience multi-dollar raises to keep them), etc.
According to him, if you have mechanical aptitude and are willing to learn all of the intricacies of machining, you can and will make a decent salary for the rest of your life so long as you’re willing to work.
My dog has to smell my breath after I eat/drink something. If I’m eating a sandwich, he’ll watch the whole time, and when I’m done, he’ll hop up and start sniffing/licking for crumbs.
Then he’ll stand on my lap, and put his nose up to my face, sniffing and kinda wagging his tail. I’ll open my mouth wide, and start exhaling, and he’ll eagerly start sniffing riiiiiiiiiight up against my mouth, wagging and kinda shifting his weight on his front legs. And if you don’t listen closely enough to his sniffing…
… He’ll sneeze in your mouth. 😂 He makes my friends do it too, and I do warn them about keeping their mouth open too long.
Beyond that, the only other weird thing he does (besides his crazy yoga poses he does in blankets on the couch) is lick the floor. If I’m cooking, he’s standing by the stove, ready to lunge at anything that falls to the floor. But when I’m done cooking, he’ll basically walk the entire kitchen floor, focusing primarily by the sink and stove, licking every speck of oil and crumb he can find. You’d think I never feed him based on how he acts towards food, but here we are. 😂
He nabbed some chili seeds off the floor one night before I could get them, and I asked him how they tasted while he’s walking around the kitchen, licking his chops over and over. Moved to his water bowl, drank a good chunk of that, moved to the living room, laid down there for a bit… All the while, licking his chops, trying to get the spicy to go away. And then he came back for more 😂
Most doctors don’t want to run full panel STD-tests anyway. I remember in the military I had to basically tell my doctor I slept with anything with a pulse for her to do anything beyond the basic STD panel (despite me not sleeping with anything with a pulse).
I had some bumps down under and had a doc look at them (after I got out of the military), and asked about an STD test, and she said they were skin tags, no test needed if I hadn’t been with anyone lately. Alright, fair enough, and the skin tags eventually went away on their own.
Now for herpes specifically: there are two main types, Herpes 1 and Herpes 2. I don’t remember which is which off the top of my head, but, they correspond to oral versus genital herpes. They’re not the same virus, though similar. Something like 80% of American adults have oral herpes and most don’t even know it. They’re cold sores more or less on your lips, and they can remain dormant for the entire time someone is alive.
Genital herpes is the “acne” type, and same thing, they tend to come during flare ups that can be exacerbated by stress or other life circumstances. It is possible, but rare, for someone to contract oral herpes on their genitals, and vice versa, and you are correct that it only takes contact or a small open wound for the virus to be transferred.
Does having either form of herpes make you unlovable? No, while there’s no cure, you just need to take precautions if you or a loved one has either form. Basically, do your best to avoid intimacy when you or your partner has a flare up, and if you still gotta get the deed done, consider mutual-masturbation or other sexual activities that don’t require direct skin-to-skin contact. Condoms obviously help, but they don’t protect against everything.