I never said it wasn’t low. It’s low, but 14 million people is still a lot of actual people, people just like you, under a different circumstance.

14 million people looking for work means there are a lot of potential scabs, because our social safety nets are fucking laughable. They don’t even exist for a lot of people, such as those with no work history yet (can’t get unemployment if you’ve never been employed, for example, and if you only have a couple years employment history, unemployment in a lot of places doesn’t cover shit).

Having been one of the underemployed, you often take what you can get because you don’t have the luxury of finding the “right job”.

Or you and your family become homeless.

Those are basically the options these days and I’m not willing to say that’s not the case just because unemployment (which does not include underemployment, nor those who left the job market) is low by some economists standards, because it absolutely is for millions of people.

So sure, many of those people might be looking for “the right job”, but in the interim, they find and take “the right now” job. And that might be scabby.

All good friend; we do agree and it really sucks that it’s so difficult to get people to support their own best interest if it costs them in a tangible way (even if the benefits are exponentially more impactful).

This is an education thing and we are fighting a lot of anti-union propaganda, here and everywhere. We see people lose their jobs over joining.

Who can blame them not wanting to sign up?

Union leaders need to fight fire with -water-. They need an unyielding stream of information to fight the fanned flames of disinformation and anti-union propaganda going out to perspective members, and that’s… unfortunately just not generally practical.

I don’t really have a solution, I’m sorry, but I am absolutely behind yours and every other union. I will support you all with every breath in my body, for whatever that’s worth.

Ahh, I wish it were that easy, but 4.1% of 350 million is like 14 million people (I’m willing to accept that my math is wrong but I double checked it 4 times including using the internet… and idk if I mathed it wrong or if that’s just an accurate number… I really kinda hope I’m wrong…)

That’s a lot of people either way… and you can’t fault them for looking out for themselves or their family.

I’m really sorry to hear that. Genuinely. We all need better.

I am a firm believer in unions and collective action, despite never having the opportunity to be part of a union myself. And like they don’t have a lot of power here… they got most of it removed by law years and years ago.

But it doesn’t stop us trying at least, I suppose. And the general vibe is to support the unions. I’m sure there are tons of scabs here, but… they aren’t winning social favor being scabs at least.

Even if they are largely toothless, it’s better to be toothless together; A pack of starving wolves with one tooth each is enough to do a lot of damage if they attack together often enough.

The real problem is getting them to be part of the pack. I mean each wolf is toothless anyway, so getting them to join the pack is super important for their survival too.

You certainly aren’t wrong, but… at least in my area (and this is with state-level laws that fucking decimated union power), unions are relatively well respected by the population at large, because most of us have some experience with them (big trades area), and they are growing, rather than shrinking, despite having their legs cut off at the knee.

Despite being a super conservative and heavily gerrymandered area, our major trade unions (pipefitters, construction, metalworkers, electricians, etc.) never went away, much as the state (for the past 15 or so years) would have liked otherwise. And it’s making a big resurgence; there are tons of manufacturing plants near me and a lot of them are part of or bound by the unions (not just their workplace, but like regional unions)

I hope the trend continues! We need more collective action in our society. We need unions for non-tradespeople, and we don’t have any of those… but at least the trade unions are unshakeable, and that’s a good gateway for the rest of us.

Only scabs cross the line.

I come from a union family and walked way further than I thought it would be to see sanders speak at a union hall. Worth it.

The strike that happened a week or so before the event would have had me staying home, had it extended, though. Even tho I only ever saw one single person on the picket line. Only scabs cross the line.

Keep in mind that all of these could be more or less stopped if there was any real desire to do so.

But there isn’t.

https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/phone-companies-can-filter-out-robocalls-they-just-arent-doing-it/

I tracked down the house I lived in until I was 5-6. I have lots of pictures of it in its glory and I remember it fondly.

It was an old 1800s school building that my parents converted into a house. Very cool building, lots of old-school charm (hehe).

Finding it was a huge mistake. The present owners don’t even live in it, they built a house just to the side of it and use the old structure as support for solar panels, and probably storage for the junk sprawling over the property. Which… I’m down with solar but it’s so sad to see something with so much history, charm, and character… absolutely ruined in under 30 years.

They do, you aren’t wrong, but I’m not remotely the right person to post this stuff there since I’ve never even visted the community and don’t care about men’s (or any) fashion. Beyond like… wanting some more interesting options as eye candy…

So by all means, have at ^_

Here are the URLs from which I grabbed the images. Do with them as you like, but it’s not a topic I’m qualified to post about (I have the style of… well I haven’t.), nor have interest in posting about, so please do enjoy! Take all the warm fuzzy upvotes for yourself! I have no need :) but that style is still chef kiss. And also skirts are comfy af.

https://media.gq.com/photos/6053c975b67457239e9ba337/master/w_1024%2Cc_limit/GettyImages-1210001440.jpg

https://fashionterest.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Men-Wearing-Skirts-4.jpg

I can’t find the third pic so here’s some bonus pics that I’m into instead! Maybe you’ll also like them! Idk!

https://assets.vogue.com/photos/60e71bdeb0ad2c65600f4956/master/w_960,c_limit/00_social.jpg (zoom this out there’s a totally stellar dude on the right ;) he’s why I picked this)

https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/753578950125231974/

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/220819015346-14-men-wearing-skirts.jpg?c=original&q=h_778,c_fill

https://www.pinterest.de/pin/585186545305995728/

https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/image/story/2021-10-13/mens-skirts-gender-fluid-fashion-trend-worth-trying

Oh… umm… well have a good time with that, I guess… 👍

You are more than welcome to do so, but I don’t really make posts in communities I don’t have an investment in. Or many at all really.

I can send you the URLs for the original pics and all, if you like :) it turns out those I linked are super low quality and a simple screenshot would have higher res.

But I probably don’t belong there; I have no skin in this other than finding men in manskirts psychologically attractive. And even that’s a bit of a stretch as an asexual ;)

I mean… No offense or anything but I really don’t care if I mis-spell a brand name. It’s super unimportant in the grand scheme of things. It’s… all just stupid marketing anyway, and if they cared, they would have used a smarter spelling.

What I am concerned about is calling oneself stupid and a nazi (of any sort at this point) while actually being neither. Even as a hyperbolic thing, it’s something I greatly dislike.

Please be kinder to yourself. It’s ok to be pedantic, but just say that instead :)

I also have things that make me unreasonably annoyed. It’s ok to have those things :)

I’m almost 40 and still get carded a lot…

Not at bars. They don’t care and haven’t since I was 18. But my chosen place to buy beer has a 100% carding policy regardless of age, so it doesn’t even feel nice. :( I just have my card ready before I get there so they are just like “ooh your totally on top of it!” That feels alright.

About a week ago I got carded for a video game rated M. First time that’s ever happened in my entire life, no joke… I’m still salty about that.

I’d like to see more of this sort of thing, personally. As just part of the available options. Colors would be great too!

It suggests that art and literature are worthless, and if you have such a degree you’ll be working fast food, known as among the worst jobs (low paid and nobody has a lot of respect for fast food workers).

So they don’t have ranked voting, then?

Well, good for them for working together to hopefully sidestep the worst of it. I hope it works.

I’m a bit unclear here; how does withdrawing from the next set of runoffs help prevent the problem? This article really doesn’t say.

I know nothing about their system, but wouldn’t that mean the people still running won by default? Or is this more to only give people two options instead of 3+ which dilutes the vote maybe? Does France not have some sort of ranked voting?

This is basically the reason we have artificial sweeteners, too.

Some dude was trying to make/do something, and labs were sort of “lol everything is safe” back then so he like… had a sandwich… and noticed it was sweet… so he just sort of tasted all the stuff he was working with and found aspartame. (I believe it was aspartame)

I believe the same is true for fabreeze, the underlying chemical mechanism was an accidental discovery because the researcher’s wife noticed he didn’t smell of cigarettes. It never caught on tho because it, naturally, has no smell, and you become blind to smells you are constantly exposed to, so until they added perfumes (fabreeze as we know it today), even tho it worked, nobody cared to use it. I wish I could actually find it unscented… the scented shit stinks and gives me headaches.

The nice thing about it is that this isn’t actually heating an area, it heats you and the mattress/blankets around you, basically making a microclimate in your sleepy cocoon. Very very efficient, even if your electric rates aren’t great (mine really aren’t either, but it still barely touches it, they just don’t use a lot of electricity). I put my heated pad under a padded pad to help retain and even out the heat, and it helps a lot.

Happy to help either way! So here’s some more info!

https://electricado.com/how-much-electricity-does-heated-mattress-pad-use/

Most of the below comes from that link-

60-100 watts is roughly average energy use, but you can get lower, and smaller pads will use less.

Energy Cost = (Wattage x Usage Hours) / 1000 x Electricity Rate

For example, let’s assume your heated mattress pad has a wattage of 75 watts, you use it for 8 hours per night, and your electricity rate is $0.12 per kWh. The calculation would be as follows:

Energy Cost = (75 watts x 8 hours) / 1000 x $0.12 = $0.072 per night

For one mattress pad for a 30-day month with the above assumptions, it would run you a whopping $2.16/mth.

Yeah, I’m basically built for tropical environments. I’m cold at 75 unless I have a sweatshirt on. And I still wear that big fuzzy bathrobe through most of summer (I don’t have AC, and never have, but I do have dehumidifiers for when it’s really warm, and that’s generally enough).