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Things I've noticed happen in the general vicinity of my posts:
- Fundie nutjobs reduced to curling up in a little ball, plugging their ears, and spewing either contentless religious copypasta (Freeman) or barely-coherent amateur apologia (Bot).
- The Shitey Uzzard degenerating into mudslinging and pretending (badly) not to care when defeated in arguments...every single one of them.
- Insecure manchildren accusing me of being a transsexual (some random AC) on one hand, and on the other, an actual transwoman accusing me of being a TERF (Kurenai).
- Creeps like VLM, KHallow, JMorris, Entropy, and all their kind simply giving the hell up and abandoning ship when faced with a proper down-smacking for their fallacious sociopathy.
When you have people on the fringes everywhere angry with you, each of them accusing you of the precise opposite on the spectrum they hate, you must be doing something right. In all my time here, I've never gone in for trolling, deception, or shitposting. I've always stood for what's right, and took the fight to those who would try to spread their noetic poisons, fighting it everywhere it appears for the sake of anyone unfortunate enough to encounter it, knowing full well the originators of such poison are by their own choice irredeemable, certainly so in this lifetime.
And my approach drives them nuttier than squirrel vomit.
Well boo fucking hoo. When someone on here tells me I'm bitchy or angry, I just laugh, because what they really mean is "you're making me uncomfortable by exposing my bullshit in such direct, uncompromising, profanity-laced ways." It's pretty obvious the accusations of being a transsexual come from sheltered, misogynist little manchildren who can't handle actual women speaking the plain, unvarnished truth to them, because they have so little truck with the opposite sex they've never seen it in the real world before. No, this insult to their manly honor cannot stand! ONLY another man could POSSIBLY have the balls, literal balls, to stand up to them! (And of course the kind of person who'd make this argument lumps MtFs under the heading of "man." I don't, though I do draw an important distinction between transwomen and cisgender women because, frankly, they are never going to know what it is to have a period or risk being pregnant).
Time to put on your big-boy undies and join the adult world! The toughest people I know are all women, including my own mother and some of the nurses at work. I'm a marshmallow compared to them.
And I don't regret anything, as painful as it's been sometimes. Am I a "nice girl?" No, and haven't been for several years, and you know what? It's better this way. "Nice girls" get used and taken advantage of and thrown away and never have their needs met. "Nice girls" are the permanent victims of tone trolling by people too frightened or too weak to deal with them as the full human beings they are. In this place, at this time, as this site sinks further and further into RWNJ decay, all it means is I'll fight all the harder.
What I hope this does is encourage the people on here who still seek the light to defend it. Hit back. We're seeing on a number of scales, from the President's capitulation on his stupid bullshit shutdown right down to the examples at the head of this post, that the sociopaths are like any bully: weak, cowardly, amoral types who don't expect and can't handle sustained, principled pushback. Part of it is that evil simply can't comprehend good, but mostly it comes down to how bullies work and have always worked. Anyone who wants to join me in fighting the good fight, please do: we've seen that it works.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Saturday January 26 2019, @08:45PM (23 children)
I don't know, that was a pretty mild comment from AH. AH recently told me that my kids should die because I didn't want support universal healthcare.
Hopefully Trump finishes off the ACA so Oregon can go back to the Oregon Health Plan that we had to get rid of when the ACA went into effect. ACA raised rates several hundred times over the old OHP plan and slashed benefits. Low income residents of Oregon were able to qualify for OHP if they made less than around 40k/year, now the cheapest plans available costs 556-1660/year for less coverage. People retired and on Social Security used to be able to use that OHP plan, the ACA replacement is 1680-3532/year for a plan with less coverage. How is someone on a fixed income supposed to survive now? Because of the changes a lot of folks here in Oregon were forced to give up healthcare entirely and instead pay the ~700 tax. So for the really poor, instead of paying zero and getting healthcare, now they are forced to pay 700 and get nothing. The ACA is actually killing people, and she thinks its fair if my kids die because I don't want the ACA to kill any more.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 26 2019, @09:02PM (22 children)
You, again, have no idea how lucky you've been. Your children would have been dead a dozen times over had you been in West Virginia or Alabama or Mississippi or any of hundreds of other places that didn't have Oregon's approach. Of course "Obama"care (hint: it's Romneycare, fucking look it up) SHOULDN'T have lead to prices going up ANYWHERE, but it did...in places that had something better already. Considering it was basically a regulatory-capture handout to the insurance companies with a Republican originator, this is not a surprise; blame the GOP, in whose effective if not literal ranks I count Obama and the Clinton dynasty.
I sympathize somewhat, though not having children myself leaves a bit of a reality gap here. And I stand by the earlier statement: when you support policies that lead to the death of other peoples' children, yours are fair game. They are not special. You are not special. You, and they, are simply lucky.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Saturday January 26 2019, @09:36PM (13 children)
I was fortunate to live in a state that had OHP when my youngest kids were born because i had to quit my job and move to a different state to take care of my grandmother with alzheimers. There was no "luck" involved with quitting my job to take care of family. I like and support safety nets because they are beneficial to all inolved. But then the Democrats unanimously passed the ACA without accepting any input from the opposition (such as the inclusion of tort reform that would have caused a few republicans to switch sides). The ACA and all its failings, price hikes, and insurance bailouts is 100% the fault of the Democrats and the Democrats alone. Arizona saw 300% hikes a few years ago, i dont exactly imagine Arizona as having had something better. Rates went up everywhere regardless of the system that existed before.
Everyone has shit happen to them, but they deal with it. The democrats ripped the rug out from under everyone with the ACA. A good buddy of mine with type 1 diabetes went from OHP (0/year) to 2400 a year cheapest ACA plan. Sure was considerate of the Democrats to take an additional 200/month from him he did not have.
Policies that i support are having safety nets but forcing people to find work instead of living on it forever. Policies i support would lower the unemployment rate so people can actually take care of themselves. Policies i would support would end government bailouts to insurance companies (and defence contractors). Policies i support would lower taxes on low income and lower middle class folks because 100/month makes a huge difference in the family budget.
Yet you wish death upon me and mine for simply trying to live.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 26 2019, @09:56PM (12 children)
Yeah? Obamacare, awful as it is, saved my life. In early 2015 I ended up out of the blue with a massive blood clot in my right lung, known in the business as "pulmonary embolism." I had JUST gotten insurance not a month before. Were it not for that, I'd be dead or worse. To this day no one knows how the hell it happened, as I had no DVT, my leg veins look perfect, and I'm not a carrier of any thrombophilia mutations like Factor V Leiden. They thought it was pneumonia at first, and until I forced them to do an EKG and they noticed every few heartbeats looked weird, they insisted I was being a hypochondriac.
I don't wish death on you and yours, Sulla. But I DO want you to know how precariously close to death they were, how easily the kids COULD have died if not for plain luck. You having to care for your mother might have been what eventually saved them. You, and they, could have ended up much worse off had you not had to care for her.
You have far less control over your life than you think you do, Sulla. And I find that when people understand this, they start thinking more about other people and less selfishly. I'm trying to grow the remaining conscience and humanity I see left in you. If you are serious about supporting policy that lowers cost of living and cuts out the parasitic middlemen, PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE. I pay my dues in anti-human-trafficking work and homeless outreach, this despite being on the brink of homelessness myself constantly. What do you do to pay it forward? Are you all talk, or do you actually fight?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 27 2019, @12:58AM (1 child)
Ahh, tell us more about the hell dimension?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 27 2019, @04:17AM
Maybe you'll find out :) In all seriousness, though, this is all you need to know: the saying "hell is other people" is completely 100% wrong. There's no specific place or location. You carry potential Hell within you.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday January 27 2019, @05:42AM (5 children)
We aren't going to agree so I'm not going to continue on the healthcare topic. But was planning on responding to the second part.
I am just a simple government worker in the finance department who makes sure that I make my position pay for itself through cost savings for the organization. When at the state of Oregon I found a series of improvements that one of the departments implemented that saved ten hours a week labor for one/two employees (depending on location) for each branch location. Eliminated the need for overtime for these employees and the excessive costs of bringing in temp workers for double the normal rate. My boss estimated the ongoing savings to be in the 400k/year range. I am no longer with the state but in my current position I haven't been able to make as drastic improvements, but I have paid for my position and then some.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 27 2019, @05:40PM (4 children)
Notice how everything you did was about trimming labor costs? You may have actually cost people jobs with that one. This is exactly what I mean: people have to come before profits. What you need to do to keep food on the table is one thing--hell, I'm basically shuttling Big Pharma's output all over a hospital all day, I'm a bit complicit with them by definition--but try and think outside the cubicle in your spare time.
"We're never going to agree" is code for "you made me uncomfortable and I have no good response to this" based on the surroundings that snippet finds itself in. With all due respect...good. The intention is to unsettle you and get you to think. Especially about how little control you, or any of us, truly have over our lives. Your children survived by mere luck; hundreds of thousands are not so lucky. And yet, they are no more or less worthy or special than yours. When you look at your child as he is ill, think about all the ones who cannot afford care or have no one to care for them, and pray to whatever you believe in that your luck holds.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Sulla on Sunday January 27 2019, @06:13PM (3 children)
No, you are so wrong its not worth looking up the sources anymore. Its easier to agree to disagree than waste more time finding citations. I spend too much time doing that already.
The budget for the department doesn't change because of the additional labor costs. That means additional labor costs in accounting are taking resources away from case work. Ten hours a week across some 20 locations for a whole year is some odd 10k worth of hours that could be spent by case workers doing case work instead of bean counting. That 10k hours is an extra 5 case workers of FTE. Case workers helping battered women, child abuse and neglegance, assisting with nutritional programs and training, etc.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 27 2019, @06:23PM (2 children)
Okay, you should have mentioned that then. I apologize for assuming you were just some bureaucrat somewhere, not actually involved in things that help people. Mea maxima culpa; it seems you actually *do* do useful work, which makes you the first who does who also holds some of the opinions you do. The contrast is still jarring; please try and integrate it all.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Sulla on Sunday January 27 2019, @07:58PM (1 child)
The thing I hate most in life is inefficiency. I have a problem with conservatives who hate programs but won't offer solutions. On one side you have the liberals who want more expansive programs to help people and (as conservatives see it) damn the fiscal costs, on the conservative side they are afraid that the ever increasing funding will break the bank (although hypocritically not when it applies to the military) and damn the current social costs. The point I make everyday as I work is that if we are actually efficient with our work we can cut spending and achieve more than we were able to do previously without needing to screw over workers. Its not difficult, you just need dedicated workers. I'm one of those people who chooses to fight it from the inside instead of just whine about it from the outside.
My first job with the state was a simple contract payment processor. My position had to be added because the other workers in the unit were so slow they were unable to meet the state's constitutional requirements for turnaround period. I was averaging 50 a day but the next highest average in the unit was around 20, with three barely managing 10 a day (same contracts, no difference in difficulty). They would whine endlessly about how they needed (and were granted) overtime so they could get their numbers to 11 or 12 a day. Being a government institution where you can't reprimand or fire someone you just have to wait them out, but for each slow person you have to maintain the rest of the operation can grind to a halt. Nonprofits who rely on that contract money to feed abused or beaten children go without funding and people don't eat. I managed to find enough efficiencies that the slow people could stay slow but still get more work done. I move on and the position did not have to be filled again by the unit so funding was able to be shifted elsewhere.
In the current world we live in the primary way we judge the success of a program is how much money is being spent. I went to a human services presentation by upper management several years ago and they had tons of metrics about how they are achieving more because their budget is higher, but didn't have any metrics on numbers of kids helped, how less kids are being helped every year because incidents are lower, etc. I exist to show that the amount of money you spend is not linked to the quality of the service you provide. There is going to be a limit but its necessary to actually find that limit. A increase in budget of the cost of living and stuff like that makes some sense, but there is no logic in 10-12% increases per year with the only changes being additional money wasted in overhead.
Anyways. I'm done with this thread, I'm sure we will cross paths somewhere else. Because that is what soylent is, endless circles of people disagreeing and never coming to any resolution, and we pretend its tech related.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:07AM
The ever present problem of power and corruption. I've heard the complaints from conservatives, I've heard and seen such stories. Inefficiency sucks, lazy bastards sitting around while others do the work SUCKS.
However, that is a human problem. There will always be such people. All we can do is try our best, and try and put good people into management. When your anger over inefficiency becomes a political platform you end up crusading against innocent people because a spreadsheet can't handle human existence.
We need transparency in government so we can find the sources of corruption and wasted resources, but we also need a supportive humane approach.
A massive part of the problem is our economic system. It has grown and adapted over the years, but the fundamental idea remains that a limited AND infinite resource has massive control over our lives. Money is a human construct and is manipulated in order to control humans. I'm not sure how we can grow beyond it, but if we're talking politics then
Between liberals and conservatives there is WAY more common ground than people are used to. Race is THE dividing issue. Gender is next. Then comes all the bullshit we usually argue about.
Liberals need conservatives to keep them safe, conservatives need liberals to find better futures. We will get there together, and contrary to popular media we are actually slowly getting there, but the propaganda is constantly trying to keep people divided by pushing bullshit that sounds so very exciting. We would have plenty of time to yell at each other over the internet if it wasn't for madmen ACTUALLY FUCKING CONTEMPLATING nuclear annihilation over economic and political systems.
The plebeians are being manipulated by the patricians, age old game taken to STUPID fucking levels. We are at the point where millions of people are believing lies and turning their best allies into enemies, and sadly this is occurring on both sides. Trump was right about one thing, there are fine people on both sides. I prefer to believe it was his dementia talking and he didn't realize he was talking about Charlottesville. Woops, I think I'm beginning to understand how people go mad!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:30PM (3 children)
If this is true why don't you get an actual tech job? Then you could stop being homeless and if you actually have some all consuming need to help other people you could literally fund an entire salary at a livable wage, for someone to do what you do now.... and still have enough left over that near-homelessness is no longer a concern.
Whatever work you're doing is going to be of a lower quality than someone who doesn't have to hustle up a hundred dollars here and there when crisis enters their life. I am curious though. I was homeless/at risk of homelessness for a period of my life. It was relatively easy for me since the entire thing was planned well in advance. Identifying the things that you need to sustain a comfortable lifestyle. A safe place to sleep. A shower. Clean water. Identifying sources and having backup plans well in advance.
The worst part was other homeless people. I'd make friends at the food bank or waiting in line for some other handout. The second I was on my feet.. the minute I had the smallest set of resources to borrow. All of them suddenly have a crisis where they will LITERALLY DIE WITHOUT MY HELP PLEASE GOD.
Well as far as I know all of them are sadly still alive. I donate to the mission and to a food bank still but I believe nothing a homeless person tells me and I am not interested in interacting with them in any way. I would never be so cold hearted but it's my firsthand knowledge of the homeless community that made me this way.
I honestly don't believe you do much for the homeless. You don't act much like the volunteers I saw, you act more like someone nobody wants to live with.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:11PM (2 children)
I did do tech until recently, upon getting hired as a pharmacy technician. To be honest I've had enough of tech work as a culture; it's only going to get worse, what with MS's obvious leanings toward "Windows as a service" and Google and Apple tightening the screws, as wave after wave of worse malware and hacking washes up and more and more critical infrastructure is found wanting...to say nothing of the actual culture aspect of "the culture." Women are still not welcome in tech.
You may believe what you wish as far as the rest goes. Even when i have nothing to donate, which is too often, I can at least listen to them. You'd be amazed what a difference that makes.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:51PM (1 child)
1) It's obvious that you've lived most of your life as a socially awkward man.
2) You could be training to become a LPN or a dental tech and have a stable middle class life in like a year.
3) I doubt you talk to the homeless much. They lie constantly and they're deliberately emotionally draining because it helps them spange.
If you're mentally unwell it might be wise to eliminate all shitheads from your life.
Stop 'fighting the good fight' in various internet comment sections. Half the people you're fighting are paid russians who want to upset you. You seek out and allow yourself to suck down negative energy.
Stop talking to homeless people. We're talking about a community that obtains "spange" animals so they can emotionally blackmail strangers into giving them money. One time I had a friend who had a dope fiend for a roommate. The guy was always late with rent, always a new set of reasons. He had to wreck his own credit and walk away from the lease so the landlord could evict the fucker. See it was his original plan to just wait out the remainder of the lease and leave. But the fiend 'borrowed' the guy's turtles so he could sit on the corner with a sign "homeless and hungry please feed my turtles" and get money for drugs.
We're not sure what happened but a few days later the turtles both died.
Yeah just about anyone becomes a wreck when they deal with the homeless. Go take care of yourself and stop looking for trouble. Stop pretending to be a martyr.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 31 2019, @07:30AM
Noooot even gonna dignify this with a proper response. You're a perfect example of the "insecure manchild" I specifically mentioned in the journal entry itself. Sorry if being blunt and rude offends you, cupcake.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 27 2019, @01:41PM (7 children)
Maybe now you begin to understand that you were sold a single-payer system, but it was all bullshit. Leftist-care was all about enriching the insurance companies. Yes, of course they had to give some meaningful improvements to a few thousand people here and there, to "prove" the success of the program. Rescue some crackheads, some homeless, some prostitutes, some desperately poor single mothers. Meanwhile, increase the costs that everyone else pays by an order of magnitude.
And, EVERYONE ignored that little bit about "you qualify for an 80% subsidy this year" but the subsidies were going to run out in two years.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 27 2019, @05:36PM (6 children)
You actually think I didn't do the research? For me it was "this or nothing." I knew from the start that this was Romneycare (so shove your stupid "leftist-care" bullshit, it was a GOP plan from the start), but it was the only game in town for me. And I hope to fuck the Dems run on a real universal healthcare platform in 2020, but I'm not counting on it.
You have a serious problem with assuming everyone who isn't you is an unthinking moron incapable of doing their own research. I mean, you have serious problems in general, but this is a particular sore point that makes attempting to discuss virtually anything with you a chore.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 27 2019, @06:29PM (5 children)
"this or nothing"
Nothing would have been better. You know it, I know it, anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size knows it. Did you say "unthinking moron"? Well, that is almost synonymous with Romney/Obama/Clinton/whatevercare supporters. "You've got to pass the bill to see what is in it!" Christ on a crutch. No matter how you look at it, you were sold a pig in a poke.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 27 2019, @06:34PM (4 children)
Without that pig in a poke, I would have died in 2015.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 27 2019, @06:37PM (3 children)
The Grim Reaper lurks around, and he'll get all of us in time. What can I say?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 27 2019, @06:40PM (2 children)
For starters, you can say something like "We may as well not make her job easier."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 27 2019, @06:47PM (1 child)
Actually, I'd kinda like his job. Maybe he's due for a promotion or something, and we can make a deal.
It just crossed my mind: what do you suppose the prerequisites are for the job? Yeah - seriously - assuming that the job has to be done, what do you think that any creator would require of an applicant for the job?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 27 2019, @07:50PM
Shut up, Runaway! You are embarrassing yourself, again.