#including interference from ANOTHER worker there

[artdecosupernova-writing]

for those keeping score—I am on day 42 of not having my ~$6000 biologic arthritis medication because the Medicaid office near us is incompetent and our case worker is being fucking lazy about getting our application through.

ETA: yes, the symptoms are back.

[chaggieslovechild]

with being valentine's day and asexuality trending, there is something I've wanted to say to fellow hazbin stans and alastor simps' (myself included), as an aroace: it's okay if you shipp him with anyone. other characters, your ocs, yourself, what have you

it's okay if you want to write or read smut with alastor, it's okay if you want to draw or see him naked or in lingerie. it's okay if you want to see him flirting and making sexual innuendos or what not

you are NOT invalidating his asexuality or aromanticism. you are NOT offending asexuals, aromantics or aroaces. you are NOT being acephobic or arophobic. you are NOT being a bigot if you like alastor in any sort of sexual situation.

if you take anything from this post, just let it be this: have fun. you don't need anyone's permission to shipp him (or any other character, in any other media) with anyone else. the scenarios you create in your head or with a bunch of friends will not interfere with the series canon, where - as of season one release - he's a canon aroace character with no interest in a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone. that won't change anything. at the end of the day, canon is one thing and fanon is another, different thing.

do what you want with alastor! like any fictional character, he's your little play thing to do whatever you want. you are only borrowing him from the creator and making a slightly, different version of him to fit your personal tastes. it's not hurting or offending anyone.

draw him in lingerie. in sexual scenarios. as a sex worker. as someone with a high libido. as a hypersexual. write him in anything you want, with whoever you want. it's free real estate

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Pavlovitz at The Beautiful Mess:

Ever since Republicans killed Roe v Wade, I’ve been hearing that Gen Z is so pissed off that Republicans have taken away women’s body autonomy, that they are going to show up en masse in November to reject them and Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris.

And the numbers are indeed showing unprecedented engagement by young voters and that they’re skewing decidedly Democrat. And while this reality gives me hope for this nation and its future, the idea that teenagers and twenty-somethings are expected to come in and save themselves from a political battle we adults lost, is an indictment of us all. They shouldn’t be in this place to begin with and we need to look in the mirror and face our shared failures: Over one hundred million of us couldn’t be bothered to vote. Others selfishly squandered their votes with third party support. Still others foolishly bought into the lie that Republicans would never overturn a law that was fixed and settled. Others of us may have simply relaxed, believing America would never see the unthinkable happen—until it did. No matter where we have individually fallen short, we all need to examine our consciences, repent from our specific mistakes, and most of all, be a part of repairing the damage we’ve made possible. Collectively, we have allowed Donald Trump, his predatory party, and three purchased, hand-picked Supreme Court justices to legislatively violate our daughters. It’s as simple as that.

We have failed to protect them from and that should fully grieve us all. So, yes, I’m glad Gen Z is disgusted, but we as their parents should be, too. Not only should we be disgusted, we should be vocal and visible. I hope we see more moms and dads come to the defense of all our kids; showing up at school board meetings and town civil gatherings and rallies and courthouse steps and church meetings and on social media and at family gatherings, and most of all in the voting booth. We should be forming a sprawling, outraged army that will flip America Blue without Gen Z’s help. We cannot fail our kids again, as we won’t get another chance to fix anything. As Donald Trump has promised, our votes and voices will not matter after November if we do not prevail. Right now, based on polls, the GOP is a few percentage points or a handful of states or possibly tens of thousands of votes away from instituting a national federal abortion ban, from subjugating every woman to Conservative Evangelical will, from continuing to take children’s healthcare out of the hands of parents and their physicians and into the hands of Conservative politicians.

And they won’t stop there. They will target same-sex marriage. They will continue to remove worker protections from minors, make it easier for adults to marry children, outlaw birth control, eliminate gender-affirming care. Part of Project 2025’s agenda includes erasing LGBTQ young people by removing all mentions of them in government institutions and organizations. Republicans have promised to criminalize LGBTQ advocates and allies and we need to believe them. The sickest of ironies in this moment, is that with all their histrionics and carrying on about the Left endangering the children of this nation, the Republican Party and the Evangelical Church have been projecting. They are the ones targeting our kids: their bodies, their marriages, their medical decisions, their very identities.

Parents and parents alone should make the decisions about what happens to their daughters and sons. These are choices to be made in the sacred space that is a family in their home, free from outside interference. Government does not belong there and the Church, only if invited by personal faith. Republicans and Evangelicals have no right to enter into that space and legislate their moral prejudices or mandate their antiquated theology for the rest of us. Another human being’s body and bedroom is not their jurisdiction: not a politician’s or a pastor’s.

Another home run post by John Pavlovitz.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Capitalists hate capitalism

As the Marxist agitator Adam Smith once said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

Smith understood that capitalists hate capitalism. They don’t want to compete with one another, because that would interfere with their ability to raise the prices their customers pay and reduce the wages they pay their workers. Thus Peter Thiel’s anticapitalist rallying cry, “competition is for losers,” or Warren Buffett’s extreme horniness for businesses with “wide, sustainable moats.”

These anti-capitalist capitalists love big government. They love no-bid military contracts, they love ACA subsidies for health insurance companies, they love Farm Bill cash for Cargill and Monsanto. What they don’t love is markets.

Case in point: pharma giant Merck. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes a provision that allows Medicare to (finally) start (weakly) negotiating the prices it pays for (a tiny handful of) drugs. If you’re scratching your head and wondering if you understood that correctly, let me assure you, you did: the US government is currently prohibited from negotiating drug prices when it bargains with pharma companies.

In other words: Medicare simply pays a pharma companies — whose products build on billions in publicly funded basic research, whose taxes are reduced by billions in research credits, whose patents are backstopped by billions in enforcement — whatever it demands.

To do otherwise, you see, would be socialism. Markets are “efficient” because they “discover prices” through bidding and selling. In the case of publicly purchased drugs, the price that Uncle Sucker “discovers” is inevitably “a titanic sum” or possibly “add a couple more zeroes, wouldya?”

Enter the IRA. Starting in 2026, Medicare will be permitted to negotiate the price of ten (10) drugs. The negotiations will use the prices of other drugs from the dysfunctional, monopolized market as a starting point and go up from there. The negotiations go on for three years, and there are multiple stages where pharma companies can hit pause with court challenges:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-05-11-regulators-bungling-drug-price-reform/

The system will not consider the prices that Medicaid or the VA (which are allowed to bargain on prices) pay. Nor will it consider the prices that other governments pay — the US is alone in the wealthy world in offering the anticapitalist price-taking posture when dickering with the pharma companies.

But this isn’t enough for Merck. They are suing the Biden administration over the IRA’s drug pricing plan, arguing that it is an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/06/merck-sues-biden-administration-over-medicare-drug-price-negotiations.html

Merck is represented by Big Law firm Jones Day, who made their bones by representing the RJ Reynolds from smokers with lung-cancer, arguing that the smoking/cancer link wasn’t scientifically sound. That’s not the only fanciful argument they put before a judge: Jones Day also represented Trump in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election (they also hired Trump’s counsel Don McGahn as he exited the White House’s revolving door).

As Ryan Cooper writes for The American Prospect, Merck’s argument is that the “fair market” value of its drugs can only be discovered if its single largest customer — Medicare — simply pays whatever Merck demands of it:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-06-08-merck-negotiating-drug-prices-unconstitutional/

They explicitly denounce the idea that a powerful buyer should use its market power to extract price concessions from sellers like Merck: “leveraging all federal insurance benefits (amounting to over half of the prescription drug market) to coerce companies to abandon their First and Fifth Amendment rights is a quintessential unconstitutional condition.”

Rebutting this argument, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said, “negotiating for the best price is as American as apple pie. Since when is competition in this American system a bad thing? Why should we be the patsies around the world and pay the highest prices for medicines?”

The irony here is that Merck itself is a very powerful buyer. Whether negotiating commercial leases, raw materials or wages, Merck is ruthless in extracting the lowest prices it can from its suppliers. The company attained its massive scale the old fashioned way: buying it. By drawing on its nearly limitless access to the capital markets, Merck bought out dozens of its competitors:

https://mergr.com/merck-acquisitions

Anticapitalist investors funded these acquisitions in the expectation that Merck would be able to use its market dominance to pay suppliers less, charge customers more, and use some of the resulting windfall to corrupt and bully its regulators so that it could buy still more companies, charge still higher prices, and impose crushingly low prices on still more suppliers.

The IRA’s drug-bargaining provisions are extraordinarily weak. When they were first mooted in 2021, I talked about how Democrats were caving on muscular drug price controls that would benefit every American (except a handful of pharma shareholders):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/18/bipartisan-consensus/#corruption

They did so despite wild, bipartisan support for imposing price discipline on Big Pharma, and ending the 300% premium Americans pay for their drugs relative to their cousins abroad. 95% of Democrats support strong price controls; so do 82% of independents — and 71% of Republicans:

https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2021/11/healthcare-affordability--majority-of-adults-support-significant-changes-to-the-health-system.html

No one believes Big Pharma’s scare stories about how this would kill R&D: 93% of Americans reject this idea, including 90% of Republicans. They’re right — nearly all US basic pharma R&D is directly funded by the federal government, with pharma companies privatizing the gains:

https://khn.org/news/article/public-opinion-prescription-drug-prices-democratic-plan/

Despite the fact that really whipping the shit out of Big Pharma would be both popular and good for America, the Dems’ final version of pharma bargaining is a barely-there nothingburger where ten drugs will become slightly cheaper, after the next federal election. This is called “political realism” and it’s a fantasy.

The idea that limiting drug controls to the faintest, most modest measures would make them easier to attain was obvious nonsense from the start, and Merck’s anticapitalist lawsuit proves it. Merck will settle for nothing less than total central planning — by Merck. For Merck, the role of the federal government is to wave through a stream of mergers culminating in Merck’s ownership of every major drug; patent extensions for these drugs to carry them into the 25th century and beyond, and unlimited sums paid for these drugs on Medicare.

Given all that, there would have been no downside to the Dems passing an IRA that subjected the drug companies the same modest, commensense, market-based discipline we see in Canada, or the UK, or France, or Germany, or Switzerland.

But that’s not the IRA we got. Instead of defending a big, visionary program in court, the Biden admin is facing down Jones Day and Merck to defend the most yawn-inducing, incrementalist half-measure. What a wasted opportunity.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/09/commissar-merck#price-giver

[Image ID: A caricature of a businessman with a money-bag for a head and a stickpin bearing the Merck logo, standing atop a pile of bundled $100 bills. At the bottom of the pile, a frowning, disheveled Uncle Sam offers up a $100 bill.]

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[lotus-tower]

thinking about true robot/AI characters again. if 'personality' or 'identity' can be loosely thought of as what makes a being uniquely themselves, a robot's personality would lie in what differentiates them from other robots of the same make and program. but by design, programs shouldn't differ from each other--inconsistency is the exact opposite of what you want. what differentiates a robot then would lie in deviations from the norm, i.e. glitches. but programs will frequently have "known glitches" where the same type of error will occur semi-regularly. this wouldn't differentiate one instance of a program from another. lived experience would help in shaping others' perceptions but not really the crux of the matter, because no one thinks of "my excel" versus their co-worker's excel, even if those two excels are used to do totally different things. maybe then what creates more unique glitches is a physical defect in the hardware. a form of the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, maybe. the 'personality' of the robot wouldn't be their general affect or behaviour, because those would be dictated by their programming and i have no interest in sentient robots, but rather in that tiny little kernel of deviation. well, at least internally. at the end of a day a robot is an object, and what makes objects meaningful is quite literally just what the person on the other end feels. a plushie can be just a mass-produced toy to everyone on earth except one person, to whom it's a companion they've shared years of adventures with. and it wouldn't correct to say that that plushie is the latter to someone who's seeing it for the first time, but it would also be silly to act like the plushie's "objective" (!) characteristic as a mass-produced toy somehow interferes with that one person's view of it.

there's loads to analyze and question about our relationships to objects and how they change depending on context, but i think what i'm most interested in is how robot characters by and large are not thought of as objects at all, but as people. this is for obvious reasons, but i think it's also rather boring. i like fantasy and sci-fi that explore different types of subjectivities altogether, including ones that maybe aren't "subjectivities" in the way we usually mean it. an AI program is inherently a "personality" that you can only experience from a second person perspective. that person is "just" a chinese room. but just like the plushie example, why should that prevent others from creating a unique bond and perception of the AI, as an object rather than as a person? a robot like that would essentially be a different thing/person to different characters, in a way different from how people are different people to different people. i think it would be really fun and interesting to explore the interplay between an entity's "soul" (for the lack of a better term) being in the eyes of the beholder, a soul that literally takes shape outside of the body, without agency. a robot's personality can only be experienced from the second person perspective, but by experiencing it you are also literally hosting it, in both senses.

honestly you could go in so many different directions with this, depending on what kind of story you're trying to tell. whether it's you, or you're it, or it's itself and you're you, or both but only in one direction. there simply needs to be more "speculative fiction" that actually speculates about things other than, what if there was something that was exactly like real life. but with a different name and simpler

[stupittmoran]

Top 10 headlines the media didn't tell you this week, Repost & FoIIow for more

Texas National Guard doubled razor wire barriers at El Paso border after riot broke out.

TikToker goes viral after posting video teaching iIIegal immigrants how to 'invade' homes in America thanks to progressive squatting laws.

Manhattan, New York’s largest school board district, bans transgender students from playing in girls’ sports.

Elon Musk's neuralink releases first ever video of disabled man using telepathy to control his PC.

Alabama bans ballot harvesting.

Republicans introduce legislation to stop federal funding for schools using diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices.

Texas terminates $8.5 billion investment with BlackRock in response to the firm's ESG policies.

Tyson Foods BOYCOTTED as it sacks 1,300 American workers and offers to hire 42,000 'asylum seekers' in New York

Michigan Lawyer Arrested by US Marshals in DC After Submitting “Evidence of Numerous Crimes” including election fraud.

NY AG Letitia James is preparing to seize one of Donald Trump's golf courses and private estates.

At what point is this considered election interference?

If you appreciate this Top 10 recap, remember to Repost and FoIIow me for another week in a clown world 🤡🌎

TaraBull

@TaraBull808

[bitchy-peachy]

I voted not only for my loved ones and my neighbors...

I also voted to make annoying people that have been harassing and threatening me and my friends about who we vote for months to cry a bitchfit at seeing Harris win.

A perfect cherry on top. Fuck you and kiss my ass. ❤️🥰

Whatever outcome will be your fault. We'll remember. ☺

Now I'm gonna prepare for a wonderful weekend. 💓

PS: For the people that actually matter in choosing our next president...

Check your registration and local election laws and if you can, vote early.

I made the mistake of voting in person in the last elections on election day and I went 💀. Good thing some people were super kind to deliver food and drinks (which republicans want to outlaw cos they see it as "election interference") as we waited in a serpertine line around the block. (More like a giant ass business building the size of a NYC block)

Also make sure they get your ballot and multiple check. A friend of mine sent her ballot by mail and they claim to have never received it aka she lost her vote. Trying to help her fix it cos she's understandably upset.

I don't trust these people at times. Lots of actual sabotagers.

Last elections a postal worker literally threw a bunch of mail in a ditch to "help" Trump.

If last elections were that crazy, I imagine this one will be worse with more unhinged bs coming from people intentionally effing up their jobs to make their favorite candidates win including attacking ballot boxes or even trying to block access to polling places or intimidation like they did to another friend of mine when she was voting in Georgia last elections.

Some unhinged fuckers of a certain party were driving up and down her street screaming with firearms. It was definitely racist shit cos my friend is in a mostly black and Mexican neighborhood.

Yeah. This kinda shit happens. But see it as a fight to protect the future for generations to come. (Especially since we've got a chance to replace 2 pos extreme right-wing Supreme Court "INjustices")

"We gotta put our own oxygen masks first before we help others because we can't help others if we're dead."

If my post makes some people angry, pueden lamerme las nalgas 💕.

[unovasrose]

re: pokémon reserves

Rosa’s desire to establish pokémon preserves in Unova stems from her exposure to the horrors of poaching during her journey. While she was dating undercover INTERPOL agent Hale Foster (alias Nick Venner), he took advantage of her sense of justice and strength as a trainer and subtly enlisted her help to accomplish some of his assignments. The most notable one included the apprehension of a group of poachers in the Moor of Icirrus.

Hale masked the outing as a training date in the Moor, where they “just so happened” to stumble onto the poachers late in the evening. Together, he and Rosa dispatched the poachers and then struggled to calm down a massively aggressive Drapion that had been provoked by the poachers. The two of them rounded up all the surviving pokémon, painstakingly buried the remains of the pokémon that didn’t make it, and informed the authorities (at which point Hale almost had his cover blown by a colleague, but Rosa didn’t connect the dots at the time).

Rosa was badly shaken by the experience and had nightmares reliving what she’d seen for weeks following. At one point, she decided that she would do whatever she could to keep people from hurting pokémon that way ever again, though at that time she wasn’t really sure what she COULD do as an average trainer. A year or so later when she became Unova’s champion, she realized that she now had the power and influence to accomplish things that mattered to her and this was first on her list.

With backing from the League, she used most of her winnings and her income as an actress accumulated during her first year as Champion to establish her first reserve at the Moor. The process included hiring rangers to patrol the area, prevent poaching while encouraging capture by licensed trainers, and monitor the pokémon in the area. Rosa had very thorough background checks performed on every candidate and even interviewed every one of them herself to ensure they were the right people for the job. Her current team is one that she trusts wholeheartedly.

Once her work with the Moor proved to be a success, she moved on to do the same with another region of Unova susceptible to poaching, White Forest. The forest brought along with it a different challenge, though, as it is mostly inhabited by younger pokémon. In addition to her team of rangers, she hired a pair of former daycare workers to care for the younger pokémon in the least intrusive way possible, and who are instructed to only interfere when it’s absolutely necessary.

Despite her fairly busy schedule, Rosa always makes time to visit both reserves every couple of weeks and is personally on call for any emergencies or strange happenings. While maintaining both sites and combating the increasing poacher activity in Unova has been challenging, the immense support the reserves received during the Ball of Hearts charity event promises a bright future for both the cause and the pokémon involved.

[helluva-world-innit]

Again, how does one draw what's in their minds???

Welcome to the second Ring of Hell, Gluttony! The color is orange, but, well, we're doing a blend across the spectrum it seems. Gluttony is where the majority of the food is grown (though Wrath does have some meat farming). This is only possible due to a portal erected by none other than Stolas to allow light from both Earth's sun and moon to come through into the realm. As such, it's the only Ring with a day and night cycle. Much of the maintenance of the gardens and jungle fall to Stolas as well, who educates the worker bees (lesser clones of Bee) on best practices when he isn't available.

Food isn't strictly necessary for anyone in Hell, but it's always desired as a way to pass the time, a creative outlet, and some denizens use the plants from Gluttony for everything from wound care to horn growth. Not to mention, Hellions often use food as a way to bribe and torment Sinners, who miss having what they did in life and will often do anything to have a taste of it again. As a result of this incentive, all food in Gluttony is off-limits to Sinners. Should they find themselves in the Ring, they are not to partake of any food lest they be caught and made part of the fertilizer. Seeing as how they can't die excepting holy interference, they will simply exist in torment as the rich soil and vegetation siphon the energy out of them. Hellborns who come to Gluttony are free to consume as much as they want without paying as they would have to do in the other Rings. This is because of the substance they excrete once sufficiently stuffed with specially prepared Hell herbs: Soul syrup.

This syrup is used to make the honey and subsequent Beelzemead of the Ringmaster, Beelzebub. It is sold throughout the realm for a hefty price and is highly addictive as one of the few substances with any sort of effect for Hellborns. Horn Honey, despite the name, does not come from Gluttony, but is another such substance that is actually so much trouble it's been banned across all Rings.

If anyone finds themself in the uncharted jungles of Gluttony, they will run into all sorts of creatures and plants that try to make a meal out of them. Including Meat Grinder Mushrooms, Angel Taproot, and cunning and vicious Apediles. As a result, many only visit the Ring for one of Beelzebub's famous parties or the towns that wealthier demons and Goetia own and vacation in in the carved out swathes of jungle where they spare no expense on the best security and luxury Hell can provide. There is, of course, one exception who comes and goes as she pleases and that includes the decadent palace of honeycomb/marble and its gardens, much to Beelzebub's dismay: Cherri Bomb. The burrowing anarchist Sinner gets a thrill out of breaking in and stealing as much as she can carry. And usually blowing shit up on her way out as a distraction.

The Apples of Eden (yes, those apples. the very ones) are grown in this Ring as well. Purportedly, they are a favorite of Satan's and so Beelzebub cultivates them and keeps them available. It is the last place they still grow outside of Heaven itself. Despite their pleasant flavor, they only make the truly innocent knowledgeable. Afterwards, every apple one eats makes them aware of one truth or another. Usually pertaining to whatever subject happens to be on one's mind at the time.

Notable characters from this Ring are Cherri Bomb. Stolas has a part-time home here as well. The Overseers of this Ring are Vox, Velvette, and an original of mine: Sinnamon Swirls. Also planning on doing a map view of this Ring later so I can paint a better picture of where everything is in relation to each other.

Up next: Greed Ring!

[bugsbenefit]

the water motif in s1

i know watergate is a thing we talk about regularly but going through s1 again it's crazy how consistent that theme of water = uh oh, is

there's quite a few posts about it but i just want to go over all of the moments just in s1 alone again (i'll probably do individual posts for the later seasons when i get to them, but i think s1 is generally the most egregious season with it anyways)

instances and images under the cut because i'm serious there's an obscene amount of times this motif comes up

the shot of the lab worker getting dragged up the elevator and killed in the opener of the show gets intercepted by the Wheeler's sprinkler system as we hardcut to Mike's campaign

2. Hopper showers right before taking smoking, taking pills, And drinking simultaneously (also moments before he gets the news of Will's disappearance)

3. Benny washes dishes Right before the lab workers show up and he is killed (sc is of where you can read the captions describing the action instead of a few seconds later where you can see him do so we have some caps in some of these images lmao)

4. it starts lightly raining when the party get to "Mirkwood" where Will dissappeared and then full on starts pouring right before they find El and get dragged into the UD mess

5. after hooking up with a random woman again Hopper stands outside his trailer looking out at the lake while there's constant water sloshing noises in the bg of the dialogue (not subtitled), meanwhile he rejects the woman's advances and talks about feeling cursed (trauma moment poor guy)

6. infamously, Steve's pool, as Barb dies (she also literally dies IN the pool here, oh girl :c)

7. obviously Will's "body" being found in the quarry

8. after Hopper breaks into the lab and gets drugged. he wakes up in his now bugged home and runs outside first thing, where we get another great shot of the lake next to his house, again with the water sounds too

9. Lonnie showers at the Byers' while Joyce finds the papers in his bag confirming he just came back for monetary gain

10. El's constant traumatic flashbacks of the lab where we get to see "the bath", not including Every shot here because it happens more than once

11. now Nancy takes a shower while having flashbacks to her encounter with the Demogorgon that almost killed her

12. El looks at her reflection in the water while she's hiding out in the forest and breaks down/freaks out screaming at her reflection and disturbing the water

13. Mike at the quarry right before he almost dies if it weren't for El's interference (i haven't included the shot of Hopper standing at the quarry talking about how a fall in would be deadly since it's before Will's body is found there and Mike almost dies in there for real, since it would take up even more space here and is already on theme with setting tragedy up)

14. when the party all catches each other up to date Hopper tells everyone that the gate to the UD in the lab is "near a large watertank"

15. El washes her face, feeling bad for not being able to find Will or Barb, and seconds before deciding to ignore her fear and face the void again by setting up a new "bath" for her to use her powers

16. said "bath" itself, obviously, which already causes her great distress but is also from where she sees Barb's dead body

17. Will using the bathroom sink right after coughing up the UD creature and right before he has an actual flash to the UD itself

18. also every instance of El visiting the void, which exclusively consists of the water floor (during which she's not only scared each time but also mainly consists of moments like finding the Demogorgon or a dead Barb)

19. also the fact that anyone in the UD is extremely wet, which we see anytime we get shots of Will or Barb there

like. the amount of times this happens it crazy. i also didn't leave out any water moments and just cherry picked the "bad" ones. this is literally all of them. (fyi, i don't have one establishing lake-shot of Hopper's cabin in here because there's already so many images, but Hopper's cabin is associated with water in general every time were there. something bad also happens every time we're there so i guess it evens out)

also fun detail, i wouldn't include it in the actual list but i just think it's too funny to not mention at all: when the kids hide out in the bus at the car junk yard (the same the kids also hide in with Steve during s2) Brenner's men show up. and when one of them turns to finally check out the bus the camera turns and suddenly there's no cars on screen anymore and just Boats

literally just boats

which is Really funny tbh. i wouldn't count it as an actual watergate moment, but this is also the closest they could get to hint at their water motif without having the guy chug water while hunting kids or having another spontaneous rainstorm start

i just want to know where they're going with their overall water theme SOOO bad, it's been so prominent since s1, it clearly seems to be associated with bad things happening. but also the fact that there are no bodies of water in the UD (while everything is still wet and or gooey??)

I NEED TO KNOWWW LET ME IN

[cosmicangel888]

The Rights of Choice ~ 5D Joanna

Let's make this clear dear ones,

Anyone that spends years corrupting another, in the myriad of ways that was done to me in my case; using, abusing power, energy, information, including gangs of black sex magic covens, and those obviously blatantly not aligned with any level of 'spirit' and higher self,

I will always choose me.

I have gifts to see through illusions, darkness, unravel the issues, problems, and see truth from deception and where the mess, knot of lies is and how corruption is threaded - and I will bring and use my story and my own gifts, to help millions, millions of innocent that do not have the protection, the safety that they are meant to have;

Entrust one that is unhealed and speaking words but nothing behind it but deception, corruption and ill will for selfish gain - the trafficking, the slight of hand; Source, God, seers will see it, and no amount of spell casting for confusion, placing foggy spells and attacking charka's to throw an intuitive off - no amount of paying off for silence will be enough - for light is everywhere and our planet, our earth and our hearts are calling for love, unity and integrity - and I will not silence; I know truth - none of the past will be allowed to enter my space - I am pure and I am honouring - the deception will be known, felt - and I have my birthright, support of the heavens to free the innocent -

This is my birthright - and none on the ground, no human ranking out-bids and out-writes Source, and angelics;

I will walk and pierce through it all ~

I mean if you are doing interference spells; death magic, ugly spells, poverty spells, blockage and not receiving spells, bringing falseness and blasphemy to my work, my name, corrupt my work, use and copy my content, ideas, and work, then provide no legal agreement ever made, no credit given, not 1 penny offered, nor ever legally given rights to do so; being that none that were using and copying my work have no preparation, clue, nor alignment to even know what the layered codes, wisdoms, and intelligence is;

The daily, monthly, annual rituals, ceremonies, and death tactics, withholding of information that is in my name, my rights to have my information, my work, my monies rightfully mine, these people, gang of false spiritualists and community hoods, falsify and fraudulently take, hide, withhold, veil, and use the most manipulative ways to dishonour, take, steal, and enslave truth tellers, speakers, then punish and blame, shame them when they do have the strength to speak up and send on their own;

Anyone that was a ring-leader, player, false client, fake friends, and family that delay my own human rights to be divorced from such toxic and dangerous communities, and play on every mental, emotional, spiritual and human rights;

harassment, gang-stalking, infringement of privacy, fraud, criminal and occult crime, premeditated death and murder plots, corruption in paying, slight of hand to anyone involved that was easily swayed, blackmailed, to silence and play along while 1 person, 1 light worker that was tortured so that she would slip out of sight, and they could take the business, any insurance and inheritance that was preplanned and most likely falsely signed;

I know what I have signed, I know what conversations, and advisors I have been talking to and as I have been celibate for 13 yrs and estranged for 7 yrs, there is no need for an insurance policy and have not signed any such documents

Any documents signed of and with my name are done so fraudulently and the dopplegangers that think they look like me, sounds like me; let's get on stage and bring it; we will see who is the channel, the psychic, the truth teller, the code breaker and healer, who offers codes, the thinking that I could not handle myself and I took on the whole group of you all by myself;

None of you have an ounce of energy and power with over me;

WE shall see, meet, then we will see the true humility - for that is spirit - and see who emulates such richness; who is the vibratory bringer of truth, and we will strip down to match birth marks and tattoo's for any false underground sex tapes, pictures, and falsified crap that has been done

I challenge you - I know who I walk with and the sick and selfish communities with years and years of sick group work; lets close this once and for all; bare it all with whatever names and titles and false sense of importance you think you all come with -

I will not house you, heal you or fix you - your choices your reality and your karma - none of the past are welcome in my life -

The sick plans of marriages to bind me, and wrap me up to save you - give me a break - how much healing is needed; it is not ok and all need deep healing - do not come towards me; I need none and I would never ever ever for eternity ever allow the past to return.

There was damage beyond what any of you can fathom - therefore selfish ones, the opportunist and gold diggers and schemers of spell work to the innocent for their riches and energy - you will be known; and many innocent will be re-routed away from you - that will be your karma =- perhaps you will hear Source, God this time.

And I will take this to the bank - I know who I am and my worth and it is not in the past of years of abuse, stealing, stalking and spell work.

The past will not be allowed; all will be blocked; you have not right into my life or space; ever.

Go heal

then let's bring it; on stage and then the world and all will see you, that is what you wanted - you wanted to be seen, to be known; and for the wish to be famous - for all to know you and see you - and we will match the REAL MCCOY Joanna to the false ones and then match the signatures, paper work, and other underground schemes and plots that have not worked thus far.

Bring your lawyer ~

Any and all false degradation to divine feminine and the sacred blessings to this planet has been nothing but truthful, honest and giving, unconditionally to a sick community that did not know when to stop and stay in their own lane of nefarious magic; and have fooled many people -

Those doing, paying for, wasting money on harmful, interfering voodoo overseas, all payments are traceable, all spell casters taking 1000's for weekly readings, on my energy trying to track, spy, see what and when is coming in, the ones behind the door, that you simply fail to show yourself and how honourable is that you stand behind your work while paying others to do your bidding, hit work; and then using manipulation to bind and entrap and black mail sex groups, orgies for energy against me; it will make a great story one day and I know what side I play on;

You all felt it necessary and painfully sick to vibrationally rape me every day and think you have a space in my life - well now you will be known - famous and well known; close this out and I will not be 'ok' with your selfish entitlement to think you have or are owned, earned and entitled to anything - you are not my family, nor my friends, and nor my work circle - I have been on my own for 15 years on my work and not 1 person has contributed to any of my work; yet you all found it easy to steal and shadowban -

The cycles are closed and will never re-open

Counterparts do not do black magic, counterparts do not control and live in obsession to control take, and veil from the world, and if you know nothing about ascension - you are meant to uplift and expand out - not suppress and depress and hide and steal from - all need to heal - my god - the immaturity and pettiness and the damage is beyond understandable.

THE PAST WILL NEVER RE-OPEN; ALL ARE IN SPIRITUAL JAIL FOR WHAT WAS DONE, TRESPASSED, AND CONSTANTLY DEGRADING - Stay away from me; or restraining orders will be placed on all - the mother, the counterparts, and all involved and every slight of hand;

speak to my lawyer and close out, the grave imbalances all has caused me, the harassment, discrimination, and audacity to think I had to prove anything to any of you, be tested, is such arrogance to test God; test karma - your life, your health is your proof,

Your last minute truth, apology, forced and contrived because towers fall - I need not such; seek my lawyers, for monies taken, stolen, and papers signed for closing of this sick cycle.

I reclaim all my energy, power and rights many felt entitled to take and swindle -

Abusing power, information, resources, energy, and privacy is not a soul mate behaviour - it is self wounding, inner child wound, and karmic and such will not be allowed to return in my space.

There are no further ties or connections ever to be made the bridge is rightfully burned - irreparable and anyone thinking there is an opportunity - my God read the above again and ask yourself; how is any of this ok to create in any way, and treat an earth angel and to think there will be a friendship and rekindling - all need to seek help, seek lawyers, and seek the closure of this before it goes viral.

I have my rights. I will hold to them because none have cared nor respected them - And such will be our new earth journey -

The new rules, honouring, respecting, our universal laws, and thus being in respect and loving grace of all life in return; that is richness of spirit -

My time, energy, is precious and I will be paid, honoured, valued as such in monetary exchange; be it ideas, content, alignment, activations ~ this is the new way;

Covens, groups that deny human spiritual rights and interfere with human destiny, soul blueprints will be immediately returned all energies and placed on spiritual watch list; gifts, skills, talents, to be then distributed by spirit -

We live on a glorious planet, and all are meant to lovingly share, and there will no longer be the abuse of power, energy, and resources for domination or control, fear-mongering, nor power over any aspects of life;

These are natural innate laws; and we have taken ourselves so far outside due to the lack of self, no sense of self, and disconnect from who we are naturally innately within; it has 0 to do with religion it is the essence of light, matter, spirit, science ~ love, forgiveness, compassion, and respect for all life and the grand design and plan for all - go within, seek within, and make right the wrongs done, in malice or otherwise - return monies stolen, taken, and begin anew;

There is no further tolerance of abuse. There is no return;

I want my divorce, I want all monies taken, stolen, and business running in my work, name, return it immediately

And so be it,

This is new earth, test such laws of One and love, light, without choosing to heal and thus then will be the equal return. These are merely laws. None will escape nor be hidden from such.

My lawyers contact; no other contact will be accepted.

jnelson@jmbarristers.com

Joanna

JoannaCosmicAngel@yahoo.com

#ascension #enlightenment #awakening #calgarycrime #calgarycorruption #healinghumanity #healingenergy #divinefeminine #healingdivinefeminine

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lisa Needham at Public Notice:

Elon Musk is busy. No, not because he’s attending to any of his multibillion-dollar companies. For Tesla and SpaceX and Starlink, he’s full of wild promises with very little actual progress. But what Musk is really spending time on these days is attacking the core foundations of American democracy on multiple fronts. There’s his thus-far successful effort to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). There’s his political action committee, America PAC, which pretends to help register people to vote but is just hoovering up voter data to give to the Trump campaign. And there’s his lawsuit seeking to force companies to advertise on X, despite the fact advertisers generally do not want their ads running next to the Nazi content X is full of now. All of these efforts have the potential to succeed because the federal courts are broken, and the administrative state is dying a slow and painful death. 

Immiserating workers

Let’s start with the NLRB. It’s no surprise that Musk is no friend to labor. He doesn’t believe in unions, saying that they create “a lords and peasants sort of thing,” whatever that means. When workers at his Fremont, California, plant began an organizing campaign, he tweeted that they would lose their stock options if they joined the union. This sort of threat is extremely illegal, and the NLRB sided with the workers who brought multiple unfair labor practices charges against Tesla. Tesla also prohibited workers from wearing t-shirts with union insignias, even though the right to wear pro-union clothing at work has been a legally protected activity for several decades. Then, of course, there’s the class-action lawsuit in California state court, where almost 6,000 Black workers at the Fremont factory recently got the right to sue Tesla for ignoring massive racism at that plant. How massive? Nooses at the workstations of Black workers massive.  [...]

A scam PAC

America PAC purports to help people register to vote. If you live in a state that isn’t a swing state, that’s what the PAC’s website does — sends you over to your state’s voter registration page. But if you live somewhere in play this November, the America PAC website asks you for detailed personal information, including things utterly unrelated to voter eligibility, like your cellphone number. After all that is entered, the PAC doesn’t register you at all. It doesn’t even send the user to their state registration website. It just displays a “thank you” page.  So, swing state voters may think they’re registering, but they’re not. Instead, they’ve handed over their data to a PAC that is coordinating with the Trump campaign. While PACs are generally not allowed to work directly with campaigns, America PAC is a door-to-door canvassing group, and those, inexplicably, can work hand in hand with a candidate. However, pretending to register people to vote is probably a bridge too far.

[...]

Suing advertisers

Mr. Free Speech is also availing himself of the courts to try to force companies to advertise on X. On Tuesday, X filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), an advertising trade group, in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas. Why Wichita Falls, some 300 miles from Austin, where Tesla is located? Because the Northern District of Texas enthusiastically embraces judge shopping, and every case in Wichita Falls goes to Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee who routinely tries to throw out the whole of the Affordable Care Act and is a reliable vote for anything conservatives want. (The WFA announced Thursday that it’s shutting down because it does not have the financial resources to fight X in court.) Musk already has another case before Reed O’Connor on a similarly twisted legal theory.

Late last year, X sued Media Matters in O’Connor’s court after Media Matters accurately pointed out that ads were appearing next to the Nazi and white nationalist content that is rife on X now. That case shouldn’t exist, period, and it especially shouldn’t be in O’Connor’s courtroom. As Mike Masnick pointed out over at Techdirt, X is incorporated in Nevada, with headquarters in California. Media Matters is in DC, and the Media Matters writer named in the suit is in Maryland. The only connection to Texas is that Reed O’Connor is very friendly to conservatives.

Elon Musk is selling out to enemies of America who seek to erode our democracy.

[reasonsforhope]

Thanks for posting! More info below.

"The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has confirmed that over 500 employees at Blizzard Entertainment have formed a wall-to-wall union at the Microsoft-owned studio.

The new unit is called World of Warcraft Game Makers Guild (WoWGG-CWA) and comprises the entire World of Warcraft development team, including designers, engineers, artists, quality assurance testers, and more. Another 60-person unit of Blizzard QA testers called Texas Blizzard QA United-CWA has formed simultaneously in Austin, Texas. 

Staff were able to organize without interference thanks to a seismic Labor Neutrality Agreement that was struck in 2022. That agreement was subsequently extended to other Microsoft employees within ZeniMax, paving the way for almost 250 workers at Bethesda Game Studios to unionize earlier this week [July 2024].

The CWA said Blizzard's latest union represents a "significant milestone" in a journey that began when employees walked out and rallied at Blizzard Entertainment HQ in California in 2021 to protest Activision Blizzard's response to a California DFEH sexual harassment lawsuit.

"This victory underscores the growing momentum of worker organizing in the video game industry and will hopefully continue to inspire other video game workers to form unions and raise industry-wide expectations for pay, benefits and respect for workers’ rights," added the CWA.

Unionized Blizzard devs want to ensure "every voice matters"

Speaking to Game Developer about their decision to unionize, Blizzard senior software engineer Kevin Vigue said the unit hopes to make good on the company mantra "every voice matters."

"By forming a cross-disciplinary union, we seek to enshrine that value and ensure that the developers of World of Warcraft, QA included, will always have a voice in our own workplace," they said...

Vigue explained the World of Warcraft team was inspired by the unionization efforts at ZeniMax, Sega, and other studios that have made a collective push for better working conditions. Their resolve, he added, was only strengthened by the wave of the mass layoffs and studio closures that have carved through the game industry.

"We organized not just for ourselves, but also our fellow employees who make the game with us. By ensuring we're all treated fairly in our own workplace, we can focus ourselves on our shared passion: making great video games," they continued.

"Our union effort predates the recent layoffs, but witnessing them firsthand only served to solidify how important this effort is for the entire gaming industry. With our union contract, we can have a voice to minimize the impact of future layoffs and ensure we retain talent and knowledge whenever possible."

WoWGG-CWA will now elect a representative bargaining committee from the World of Warcraft team and survey its members to understand which issues need prioritizing. "While the team's voice will determine what we bargain for, we've also had numerous conversations with each other in the past few months," added Vigue. "We suspect our top bargaining items will include layoff protections, improved work from home policies, transparency around performance and promotions, and pay adjustments to align with the expensive areas we live."

Game industry unions building momentum in the United States

Workers have formed a number of unions within Activision Blizzard and Microsoft in recent years.

Prior to the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft maker being acquired by Microsoft, QA staff at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany succeeded in their attempts to organize–despite reports of interference. More than 300 QA workers at Bethesda also voted to unionize in January 2023, becoming the first union to form within Microsoft.

Those efforts have continued post-merger. In March 2024, roughly 600 QA workers at Activision Blizzard formed the largest certified union in U.S. video game history when they established AQAU-CWA. Bethesda Game Studios Montreal employees are also attempting to unionize and filed for certification with the Quebec Labor Board in June 2024. Now, almost 750 employees have unionized across Blizzard Entertainment and Bethesda in the past two days.

To learn more about the surge in unionization across the game industry, we sat down with union workers and insiders to discuss the power of collective action during a tumultuous period for studios and developers. Read the full story here.""

-via Game Developer, July 24, 2024

[nursingwriter]

¶ … Insurance for Nurses Most of us probably see the issues of overtime and insurance as being entirely separate from each other. But for nurses, there is a clear connection between the two - one that is becoming clearer all of the time. Nurses have throughout the past decades found themselves working more and more hours, often being forced to take overtime shifts. This has resulted in a decreased quality of life for the nurses themselves and often results in poorer care for patients. One of the roles that nurses have always provided is the kind of extended personal care that patients need and that doctors cannot economically provide. This is being compromised by ever-increasing patient loads and by nurses who themselves are increasingly stressed. So what has the issue of mandatory overtime to do with insurance? Quite a lot, actually. Nurses are being used more and more often to perform work once done by doctors, even as LVNs and technicians are being pushed more and more to perform work once done by RNs. This displacement of labor down the organizational hierarchy results in savings in health care (since each task is performed by the person who can be paid the least to do it) - or at least savings for insurance companies and HMOs. These savings are paid for in terms of lowered patient healthcare and decreased job satisfaction. However, some nurses have in the past several years begun to flex their muscle to demand that savings for insurance companies not interfere with patient care to the extent that nurses are working too many hours and seeing too many patients. Concept Nearly anyone who has ever been in the workforce has been faced at one time or another with the issue of mandatory overtime - that is, being asked to work more than eight hours in a day or forty hours in a week. This situation is sometimes perfectly acceptable to the employee. For example, an accountant might reasonably be expected to be called upon to work more than 40 hours in the weeks leading up to April 15. Assuming that she is being paid for the hours worked, she is more than likely to agree that such a "request" on the part of her employer is a reasonable one. However, sometimes required overtime is not so reasonable, as is the case taken up in this paper. When workers are not compensated for overtime (either not paid at all or paid only at their regular rates) or when they are required to work such long hours that their own safety or those of others is endangered, then the employee is rightly concerned about the issue. The issue of mandatory overtime is one that has in the past decade become of increasing concern to nurses. This is due to a number of causes, including the fact that many fewer women now choose to go into nursing for the simple reason that they have more prestigious and better-paying options now open to them, something that was not true for previous generations. This is coupled with a growing need for nurses as the baby boom generation ages and requires more medical care along with the fact that managed health care facilities are often all too eager to cut nursing staff as a way to save money, as noted above. But while an accountant who is overtired may make mistakes that can cost someone tax penalties, a nurse who is tired may make mistakes that can cost someone her life. This fact is behind the impetus for new laws and labor agreements that will limit the number of hours that nurses are required to work. Many nurses - both in the United States and in other industrialized nations - have for a number of years been forced to work mandatory overtime. Often, such action can endanger the safety and health of both nurses and patients. (For example, a tired nurse is far more likely to stick herself accidentally, increasing her chance of contracting AIDS, hepatitis, and a number of other diseases). Nurses do not simply have the option of declining to work these longer hours, which is why the practice has been designated as mandatory overtime: Nurses who refuse the overtime often are threatened with losing their jobs and their licenses, which has prompted a number of nursing unions and advocacy groups to call for contracts that end mandatory overtime. The Maryland Nurses Association is one group that has been particularly vocal and articulate on this issue. One bill recently considered and passed by the Maryland General Assembly exemplifies this trend in capping the number of hours that nurses may be forced to work. HB 889 prohibits an employer from requiring a nurse to work more than 8 hours in a workday or 40 hours in a workweek while authorizing an employer to require a nurse to work up to 10 hours in a day or part or all of a succeeding work shift in limited circumstances. Among these circumstances are the provision that a nurse "may not be considered responsible for the care of a patient beyond the nurse's prescribed work period if the nurse notifies another nurse and transfers his or her responsibility for a patient's care to a properly designated individual." Literature Review The state legislative analyst's summary of the bill further clarifies its potential impact on the medical workforce: In a workweek based on four ten-hour days, a nurse may not be required to work more than ten hours in a day. However, an employer may require a nurse to work part or all of the next succeeding work shift if: the work is a consequence of an emergency situation that could not have been reasonably anticipated; (2) the emergency is nonrecurring and is not caused by or contributed to by the employer's inattention or lack of reasonable contingency plans; (3) the employer has exhausted all good faith reasonable attempts to obtain voluntary workers during the succeeding shifts; (4) the nurse has critical skills and expertise that are required for the work; and (5) the employer has informed the nurse of the basis for the employer's direction. There are particular issues involved when health-care workers are required to work long shifts (and of course doctors as well as other health workers often work very long hours in addition to nurses); however, this argument against mandatory overtime for nurses must be seen in a larger context in which all workers are protected against unreasonable demands from their employers, especially when those demands are made to increase the profits of another entity - in this case, the insurance companies. American workers in general are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is also more commonly called the Wages And Hours Act. This was in fact the first act passed in the United States that required the federal government to regulate wages and hours. Passed in law in 1938, the law applied to all industries engaged in interstate commerce and established a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour for the first year - which was to be increased to 40 cents within seven years. No worker could be obligated to work more than 44 hours (declining to 40 after two years) unless that person was paid overtime. This is a fundamental part of labor law and practice in this country, and it demonstrates the power of insurance companies that they have in many ways been able to undermine such an importance piece of legislation when it comes to nurses. Such legal restrictions on overtime work are the primary reason that the average number of hours performed by workers has declined substantially greatly since the middle of the 19th century. Workers in advanced industrial countries in the 21st spend far fewer hours per year in every field than they did in comparable fields125 or 100 years ago. Analysis The movement for shorter hours was an important part of the first unionization efforts in this country - and was always met with employer resistance since employers - like insurance companies - want the most labor for the least amount of pay from workers. Part of the reason that employers initially resisted shorter days also had to do with the fact that, at the beginning of industrialization, capital equipment was both scarce and expensive relative to the cost of labor. While this is no longer true in many fields, it does in fact remain true in some fields of work today, including medicine. We see in medicine that nurses' labor is relatively cheaper than capital investments as well as relatively cheaper than the work of other health-care professionals such as doctors. Both traditionally male and female professions have been affected by required overtime: Mandatory overtime is an increasingly contentious issue in contract negotiations for employees who feel they've been pushed to the limit, including those in telecommunications, nursing, transportation, steel, mining, and the auto industry...Nurses have been particularly hard hit by forced overtime policies in hospitals and other health care settings. After cutbacks and restructuring in response to managed care, nurses are routinely asked to work 12 to 16 hours a day, often with no advance warning, says Patricia Franklin, head of the workplace advocacy program for the American Nurses Association. If nurses don't agree to work the extra hours, they're threatened with charges of patient abandonment and actions against their licenses, she says. It's one of the most central issues facing nurses," Franklin says, adding that 16 states are considering bills to ensure adequate nurse staffing levels. "If we can't provide a safe and healthy work environment, we are not only jeopardizing the future of nursing but the safety and well-being of all patients." In the particular case of the Maryland nurses, we can see how the interests of health care professionals and patients can in many ways be seen to be in opposition to the interests of insurance companies. While the bill was supported by the Maryland State Board of Nursing and the Maryland Nurses Association as well as by a number of patients' rights and consumer groups, it was opposed by hospitals and insurance companies and HMOS. Summary Overtime seems to be an employee issue having little to do with the power of insurance companies. But in fact insurance companies use mandatory overtime as one of the most powerful human resources tools that they have to require lower-paid health-care professionals to assume more and more responsibility. This is something that all health-care professionals must fight against, but it is especially important for nurses to fight against it because they are one of the classes of workers most affected by it. Moreover, insurance companies' push to make nurses work more hours can be seen to undercut the most important aspects of the nursing ethos, which is to give each patient individualized care on a schedule that meets the patients' needs. References Hartnet, Johnette. (1993). Grief in the Workplace: Forty Hours Plus Overtime. Philadelphia: Good Mourning. Yates, Michael. (1994) Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs: Employment and Unemployment in the United States. New York: Monthly Review Press. Michael Yates, Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs: Employment and Unemployment in the United States. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994, p. 38. Johnette Hartnet, Grief in the Workplace: Forty Hours Plus Overtime. Philadelphia: Good Mourning, 1993, p. 24.  http://www.vhihealthe.com Read the full article

[stevenlacaj]

Solar Energy’s Net Positive Environmental Impact

Natural gas, coal, and fossil fuels are non-renewable. Their use also harms the environment. Wind and solar energy are both clean and renewable. They help reduce overreliance on non-renewable energy sources and to mitigate their environmental impact.

Solar power has a tiny carbon footprint over its lifecycle. Greenhouse gas emissions from rooftop solar panels per kWh are 12 times less than natural gas and 20 times less than coal. Over its lifecycle, which can be as long as 35 years, a single rooftop solar power system spares the environment approximately 200,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Solar energy’s small carbon footprint also helps mitigate climate change. Climate change causes such ills as prolonged droughts, severe storms, and global warming. By harnessing sun rays, solar panels provide a green alternative to fossil fuels, whose overdependence is powering climate change.

Solar power preserves water. Electricity generation uses thousands of water for cooling generators. Meanwhile, natural gas extraction uses millions of liters of water, not to mention water needed for processing, refining, and transporting fuel. Solar power generation requires no water, which helps reduce the strain on water, an increasingly finite resource.

Oil spills are another challenge associated with overreliance on oil. They can damage marine environments. Solar energy helps mitigate the risk of oil spills by reducing oil dependence.

Solar energy production comes with zero air pollution. Meanwhile, electricity generation from coal and fossil fuels releases harmful gases like methane and CO2. These gases are linked to pneumonia, allergies, asthma, bronchitis, and some cancers. Increasing solar power uptake will help reduce incidences of respiratory diseases.

Solar panel production is not without an environmental cost. Solar panel production depends on mined silver, copper, aluminum, and silicon. The difference between mining solar panel raw materials and fossil fuel mining is that the former uses raw materials to build infrastructure. The latter uses raw materials primarily to generate fuel.

Moreover, with solar power materials, there’s a chance for recycling. It’s virtually impossible to recycle gas once it’s been used. It can only end up in the atmosphere.

Solar power generation is also noise-free. However, hydroelectric and coal power generation cause noise pollution. The consequences of noise pollution include speech interference and stress-related conditions like high blood pressure, sleep disruption, and hearing loss. These consequences are worse for miners and factory workers but also affect nearby people.

The development of the solar sector has inspired remarkable innovations in green technology. These include advancements in photovoltaic cells and smart grid technologies, like net metering, which allows solar power users to feed extra solar energy into the national grid in exchange for credits. Innovations like solar windows and roofs will help address the challenge of space for solar panels.

Although large-scale solar energy generation demands large tracts of land, unlike the impacts of fossil fuel mining activities, it is not permanent. Moreover, solar panels can be installed on degraded lands, giving the soil underneath time to regenerate over their 30-year lifespan. Furthermore, animals and plants can thrive under solar panels.

All forms of energy impact the environment. Solar energy has a net positive impact throughout its lifecycle (production, use, and disposal). Sun rays are renewable and free. The rate of fossil fuel use far outmatches the replenishment rate. Increasing solar uptake will help reduce overdependence on unsustainable energy sources and encourage green innovations.

[abboudlawfirm-tucson]

How Do Personal Injury Attorneys Handle Repetitive Strain Injury Claims?

Repetitive strain injuries (RSIs) often go unnoticed until they start to interfere with daily life. These injuries are caused by repetitive motions or prolonged activities commonly associated with workplace tasks or poorly designed environments. If you’ve developed an RSI due to someone else's negligence, you may have grounds to pursue compensation. This is where a personal injury attorney steps in to guide you through the process and fight for your rights.

What is a Repetitive Strain Injury?

Repetitive strain injuries occur gradually as repetitive actions or improper ergonomics cause damage to muscles, tendons, and nerves. They commonly affect areas like the hands, wrists, shoulders, and back. Here are a few examples of RSIs:

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Often caused by repetitive hand movements, such as typing or assembly line work.

Tennis Elbow: Common in activities requiring repeated forearm movements.

Tendonitis: Inflammation resulting from overuse of tendons.

Bursitis: Painful swelling of the bursa sacs cushioning joints, often from prolonged pressure or repetitive actions.

These injuries can reduce your ability to work, perform daily activities, or even enjoy life. If your RSI is linked to negligence, consulting a personal injury attorney is a crucial step toward securing the compensation you need.

How RSIs Can Be Caused by Negligence

Repetitive strain injuries are often preventable. When negligence plays a role, the liable parties should be held accountable. Common causes of RSIs include:

Workplace Negligence: Jobs that demand repetitive motions without breaks or ergonomic equipment can lead to RSIs. Examples include excessive typing without proper support or lifting without suitable training or tools.

Improper Workspaces: Lack of adjustable desks, supportive seating, or appropriate lighting can increase the risk of RSIs.

Insufficient Training: Employees who aren’t trained to use equipment safely or maintain proper posture are more susceptible to injuries.

Defective Products: Faulty tools or devices can cause strain and repetitive injuries, opening the door to potential product liability claims.

How a Personal Injury Attorney Can Help with RSI Claims

Repetitive strain injury claims often require detailed investigation and expertise. A personal injury attorney will provide support in these key areas:

1. Establishing the Link Between Activity and Injury

Your attorney will collect medical records, expert opinions, workplace documentation, and other evidence to prove that repetitive motions or environmental factors caused your injury.

2. Determining Liability

Your attorney will identify responsible parties, whether it’s an employer, product manufacturer, or another negligent party. Depending on the situation, you may pursue a workers' compensation claim, a personal injury lawsuit, or a product liability claim.

3. Calculating Compensation

RSIs can have long-term consequences, so your attorney will ensure all damages are considered, including:

Medical Expenses: Costs for treatment, therapy, and ongoing care.

Lost Wages: Compensation for time off work due to the injury.

Reduced Earning Capacity: Damages for limitations affecting future employment.

Pain and Suffering: Compensation for physical and emotional distress.

4. Negotiating with Insurance Companies

Insurance companies often attempt to downplay or deny RSI claims. A skilled personal injury attorney will negotiate on your behalf, ensuring fair compensation.

5. Representing You in Court

If your case cannot be resolved through negotiation, your attorney will represent you in court, building a strong case with evidence and expert testimony.

When Should You Contact a Personal Injury Attorney?

It’s essential to act quickly if you suspect you’ve developed an RSI. Reach out to an attorney if:

You’ve been diagnosed with an RSI linked to your work or another party’s negligence.

Your employer or insurance company refuses to cooperate or provide fair compensation.

Your injury affects your ability to work, making it difficult to sustain your livelihood.

Repetitive strain injuries can disrupt your life, but you don’t have to face the challenges alone. Take the first step toward recovery by consulting an experienced personal injury attorney. They’ll help you navigate the legal process, hold negligent parties accountable, and secure the compensation you deserve. Don’t let an RSI hold you back—reach out today to explore your options for justice and recovery!