mastershakeman posted:

Not as many options isn't the same thing as no options. The food desert studies excluded places like Walgreens or other places with lovely but real options for canned stuff, some basics for cooking, eggs, milk, etc.

The solution to poor areas having fewer good options for buying food wasn't to give money to companies to open stores with more fresh vegetables, but that's the one that was chosen since it enriched politicians friends

Heres an example

https://abc7chicago.com/whole-foods-englewood-closing-grocery-store/12447317/

At the time, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city committed over $10 million in tax breaks to help make the store a reality.


Giving whole foods 10m is totally fine. But giving people money to afford whole foods prices? No. Absolutely not.

HallelujahLee posted:

heres something

https://twitter.com/mjs_dc/status/1641438679460872192?s=46&t=BHs6Pl38GJXGN2Y4xeriNA

Willa Rogers posted:

that cancer-screening stuff was always kind of a trap bc if "preventive" exams actually find anything they're then coded as "diagnostic" & subject to that $8,000 deductible.

Frosted Flake posted:

It's like with covid. Most societies faced with epidemic deadly disease tried to do something and saw it as a bad thing.

Louisgod posted:

feels like 97% of americans live in an innate state of denial as they lack the general tools to compartmentalize our state of collapse without being completely overwhelmed, so it's easier to ignore it and focus on important things like football and red wine.

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:

landscaping guy I know says that mulch, of all things, is in short supply and skyrocketing in price lately. fuckin mulch lol

Turtle Sandbox posted:

This will affect boomers and we will hear about Joe Brandon hogging all the mulch because of the woke mind virus.

Radirot posted:

HOW THE gently caress does religious freedom exempt them from requiring coverage for cancer screening? holy poo poo this is bad.

ah, cool loop hole, glad to live in this loving country.

Relentlessboredomm posted:

This is America. Everything is a supply side problem, under no circumstances can we work to help people on the demand side.

Frosted Flake posted:

The first real covid protests I remember were about buying grass seed or something.

Pepe Silvia Browne posted:

"Uhh that'll cost 3 money please" - something people say nowadays, IN OPPOSITE TOWN

Frosted Flake posted:

An Empire with America's perverse socially demanded/conditioned optimism collapsing is going to be interesting because at least Augustine knew what the gently caress was up, and was optimistic about what was going to come after Rome, instead of smiling and going about his day repeating "Roma invicta".

It's like with covid. Most societies faced with epidemic deadly disease tried to do something and saw it as a bad thing. America devoted all of their energy into pretending nothing was wrong.

I don't know, I think speculation about American Optimism can be trite but I don't really know what happens when a society that expends tremendous amounts of social control into the maintenance of optimism has to contend with your lying eyes warning you something is going on nearly constantly. I think from covid it will be fair to say you won't be able to say anything about it, much less do anything (or expect anyone else to), but... lol I mean...



Eventually the house burns down anyways.

Mr Hootington posted:

New number just dropped
https://twitter.com/jasonfurman/status/1641451223432970246?t=JyRS_77S30U_QzRGPAxzPQ&s=19

euphronius posted:

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

there are an average of 1,500 train derailments in the US every year. you're just hearing more about it now because of the Ohio incident last month. the media is capitalizing on the fact that the articles generate clicks, and absolute morons like you fall for it and think everything has started collapsing

Mr Hootington posted:

No dedollarization. Seems like the safe bet!
https://twitter.com/donnelly_brent/status/1641404626078425096?t=LsFHXCBA86XlcqHQfjvZfw&s=19

quote:

Derailments in the United States are a particularly bad problem compared to other countries. While recording 777 million train-kilometers in 2019 (train-kilometers are the measure of a train traveling the distance of one kilometer), 1,338 derailments took place in the country. The EU, by contrast, only saw seventy-three derailments that year despite, by one count, recording 4.5 billion train-kilometers. For Japan, the same year saw more than 2 billion train-kilometers, according to Knoema, and only nine derailments. (In fact, the number of derailments in Japan over the past twenty-one years alone is roughly one-eighth of the amount the United States sees on average in a single year).

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

there are an average of 1,500 train derailments in the US every year. you're just hearing more about it now because of the Ohio incident last month. the media is capitalizing on the fact that the articles generate clicks, and absolute morons like you fall for it and think everything has started collapsing

Halloween Jack posted:

I've been assuming the whole time that a "typical" train derailment involved some kind of minor accident rather than train cars tipping over and getting smashed. I feel like I'd have heard about it if 1,500 train went flying off the tracks and exploded every year.

Halloween Jack posted:

I've been assuming the whole time that a "typical" train derailment involved some kind of minor accident rather than train cars tipping over and getting smashed. I feel like I'd have heard about it if 1,500 train went flying off the tracks and exploded every year.

Lpzie posted:

soon, the dollar will be company scrip like our measurement system. well be completely isolated and all the captains of industry will flee to the Moon

SKULL.GIF posted:

First they came for AI,

https://twitter.com/AdamThierer/status/1641241752731373571

Lpzie posted:

soon, the dollar will be company scrip like our measurement system. well be completely isolated and all the captains of industry will flee to the Moon

RealityWarCriminal posted:

if gdp is less than inflation, even if gdp is positive, doesn't that mean recession

skooma512 posted:

We all should be so lucky if the oligarchs hosed off to the moon.


The finest moon base humanity could ever come up with still needs constant resupply and maintenance and even then poo poo can just go wrong. It's also no place for useless idle rich, they'd have to work. If nothing else, they're going to succumb to cancer from all the radiation and respiratory disorders from the lunar regolith. Did you know that lunar regolith is really jagged because it isn't weathered? The closest thing we have on Earth is diatomaceous earth, which is frequently used as one of the few things that can kill bedbugs because it scraps up their exoskeleton. In this way, lunar regolith will also prove effective at killing parasites.

Aglet56 posted:

i think it's funny how, if AI is such an existential risk, the much saner thing to do is not to make the US the world police and nuke the entire world, but rather... turn off the internet. just turn off the DNS root servers and you don't have to kill billions of people. but yudkowsky is so online that the option is literally unthinkable to him

Oglethorpe posted:

just spray some WD-40 on the rusted carriers and warships and they'll look brand new

skooma512 posted:

The finest moon base humanity could ever come up with still needs constant resupply and maintenance and even then poo poo can just go wrong. It's also no place for useless idle rich, they'd have to work. If nothing else, they're going to succumb to cancer from all the radiation and respiratory disorders from the lunar regolith. Did you know that lunar regolith is really jagged because it isn't weathered? The closest thing we have on Earth is diatomaceous earth, which is frequently used as one of the few things that can kill bedbugs because it scraps up their exoskeleton. In this way, lunar regolith will also prove effective at killing parasites.

FlapYoJacks posted:

Shut up lib. There's a difference between "Whoops, train came off the track at a yard" and "A train carrying 100,000 gallons of toxic materials tipped over and poisoned an entire town. GUESS WHATS HAPPENING MORE RIGHT NOW?

Penisaurus Sex posted:

because you're you, I think the best parallel for the collapse of the American empire will be the Austrian empire from 1848-1868.

Compromised leaders, a byzantine and ineffectual bureaucracy, fading of international importance leading to a revanchist and angry conservative minority, culminating in an uneasy and only barely-there sharing of power with a disliked faction.

quote:

An employee of Kirkland-based Churchome was told her job was in jeopardy if she failed to tithe — or donate 10% of her earnings back to the church. Tithing, the age-old practice of donating money to a church, is typically done voluntarily. 

The employee filed a lawsuit with the King County Superior Court last week. 

Rachel Kellogg has been working for Churchome since December 2019 and is currently a post-production producer. According to the lawsuit, she claims she was unaware that tithing was mandatory when she was hired, and that it was not included in the job posting.

“I’ll be very honest: People have already been transitioned and moved on and fired because they were not tithing,” Churchome pastor Judah Smith told employees during a virtual staff meeting, according to Kellogg.

The suit alleged Smith emphasized that tithing was a condition of employment at Churchome. Furthermore, Kellogg claimed Smith used the Bible to urge employees to “sell their possessions and belongings” rather than failing to pay tithes. 

Afraid of losing her job, Kellogg said she set up automatic withdrawals from her bank account to meet the 10% threshold. However, after being involved in a serious car accident that August, Kellogg experienced a strain on her finances.