#it's not a big department.

[thedarklyblue]

give me a college without people leaving challenge

[havenshereagain]

DPxDC Idea

Danny working at Wayne Enterprises as some sort of engineer, uses the in-house app for all his blueprints and stuff

He starts getting notes from a coworker in-app, and assumes its this annoying older guy in his department who constantly undermines him because of his age, despite his education and past achievements (i feel like in this AU the Fentons react well to the reveal and they work together on a number of non-lethal ecto inventions that have Danny's name attached to them)

Except one day his coworker mentions never using the app, and Danny suddenly realizes there's only one other TD he could've been arguing with in the notes of the app

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall Free

"A bid to break up Alphabet Inc.’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

The move would be Washington’s first push to dismantle a company for illegal monopolization since unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago. Less severe options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.

Regardless, the government will likely seek a ban on the type of exclusive contracts that were at the center of its case against Google. If the Justice Department pushes ahead with a breakup plan, the most likely units for divestment are the Android operating system and Google’s web browser Chrome, said the people. Officials are also looking at trying to force a possible sale of AdWords, the platform the company uses to sell text advertising, one of the people said.

The Justice Department discussions have intensified in the wake of Judge Amit Mehta’s Aug. 5 ruling that Google illegally monopolized the markets of online search and search text ads. Google has said it will appeal that decision, but Mehta has ordered both sides to begin plans for the second phase of the case, which will involve the government’s proposals for restoring competition, including a possible breakup request.

The US plan will need to be accepted by Mehta, who would direct the company to comply. A forced breakup of Google would be the biggest of a US company since AT&T was dismantled in the 1980s."

-via Bloomberg, August 13, 2024

[xensilverquill]

Let's offer flowers, pour a cup of libation, split open the skies and start anew on creation.

first draft of a pattern for this sweet little libation vessel i saw in a museum the other weekend

[sprnklersplashes]

once again being reminded of how weird being a taylor swift fan on this website is because the people who claim to hate her just clearly do not listen to her. I saw someone say "does taylor swift even know she's been turned into a brand and stripped of her humanity? is she aware of the fact she lives in a gilded cage where she can't be imperfect?" like my sibling in christ that's what her past two albums have been about about. what exactly did you guys think anti-hero was?

[cozylittleartblog]

worst way to start my new year, thanks. i have a lot of things to say about these companies but i'm tired and just keeping it focused to the pin side of things for this one. do not ever buy pins from these companies, literally ALL of them are stolen from small artists like me. if you want to buy enamel pins, check out etsy, and artist's personal websites and shops! (though even Etsy has some bootleg pins that ship straight from china, so tread carefully…)

Every pin I've designed is, thus far, EXCLUSIVE to my etsy. if you find it anywhere else, it's been ripped off! and once these stupid bootlegs pop up, it's basically a never ending game of whack-a-mole trying to get them all taken down...

[jewishrizahawkeye]

tiktok swifties are failing to understand the album is literally an anthology of poetry but to music, so it’s meant to be long and slow processing. you’re supposed to sit and meditate on it. you need to think about the lines, think about the authors life, think about your own, then go back to the song with understanding. it’s not an easy breezy album, it’s taylor swifts poetry collection and we’re all supposed to sit on it

[wannabemasterofwindintraining]

You could be nicer about it :((

[mostlysignssomeportents]

America’s richest Medicare fraudsters are untouchable

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/2024/11/13/last-gasp/#i-cant-breathe

"When you're famous, they let you do it": eight words that encapsulate the terrifying rot at the heart of our lived experience, a world where impunity for the powerful trumps the pain of their victims.

"Populism," is shorthand for many things: rage, despair, distrust of institutions and a desire to destroy them. True populism seeks to channel those totally legitimate feelings into transformative change for a caring and fair society for all. So-called "right populism" exploits those feelings, using them to drive a wedge between different groups of victims, turning them against each other, so that elites can go on screwing the squabbling factions.

The far-right parties that are marching to victory through a series global elections are different in many ways, but they all share one trait: they appeal to mistrust of institutions, claiming that the government has been captured by elites who serve them at the expense of the governed. This has the benefit of being actually true, and while the fact that far-right parties are owned by these government-capturing elites might erode their credibility, the fact that so many "progressive" parties have stepped in to defend the institutional status quo leaves an open field for reactionary wreckers:

https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-slogan-219908

Why would voters turn out to support a "Department of Government Efficiency," run by a bully whose career has been defined by abusing the people he is in charge of? Maybe they're turkeys voting for Christmas, but they also have personal, traumatic experience with government departments that protected the abusive corporations that preyed on them.

Today on Propublica, Peter Elkind tells the incredible story of Lincare, the nation's leading supplier of home oxygen, a repeat-offender fraudster and predator that has made billions in public money without any real consequences:

https://www.propublica.org/article/lincare-medicare-lawsuit-settlements-oxygen-equipment

Lincare has been repeatedly found guilty of defrauding Medicare; in this century alone, they have been put on probation four times, with a "death penalty" provision that would permanently disqualify them from ever doing business with the federal government. In every case, Lincare committed fresh acts of fraud, but never faced that death penalty.

Why not? Lincare is far too big to fail. In America's bizarre, worst-in-class, world-beatingly expensive privatized health care system, even public health provision (like Medicare) is outsourced to the private sector. Lincare has monopolized oxygen, a famously very important molecule for human survival, and if it were disqualified from serving Medicare, large numbers of Americans would literally asphyxiate.

Lincare clearly knows this. Too big to fail is too big to jail, and too big to jail is too big to care. They are the poster children for impunity, repeat offenders, multiply convicted, and still offending, even today. Lincare has been convicted of fraud under the administrations of GW Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden, and they're still in business.

What a business it is! Elkind takes us to the asbestos-poisoned town of Libby, Montana, where more than 2,000 of the 2.857 population suffer from respiratory diseases from the open-pit mine that operated there from 1963-1990. The elderly, dying population of this town rely on Medicare and Medicare Advantage oxygen concentrators to draw breath, and that means they rely on Lincare.

That means they are prey to Lincare's signature scam: charging Medicare (and 20% co-paying patients) to rent an oxygen concentrator every month, until they have paid for it several times over. This is illegal: under federal rules, patients are deemed to have bought their oxygen concentrators after 36 months and contractors are no longer allowed to charge them. Lincare doesn't give a fuck: the bills keep coming, and Lincare patients who survive long enough have paid the company $16,000 for a $799 gadget.

When Brandon Haugen, a local Lincare customer service rep, noticed this and queried the company's home office in Clearwater, Florida (home to Scientology and the Flexidisc), he was given the brushoff. After multiple attempts to get company leadership to acknowledge that this was illegal, he quit his job, along with his colleague and childhood friend Ben Montgomery. Between them, Haugen and Montgomery had 14 children who depended on their Lincare paychecks. Despite this, they both quit and turned whistleblower, with no job lined up. Eventually, Lincare paid $29m to settle the claim, with $5.7m to the whistleblowers and their lawyers. For Lincare, this was part of the cost of doing business and the fraud rolls on.

Lincare doesn't just defraud Medicare, they also have a high-pressure commissioned sales force that has repeatedly been caught defrauding Lincare customers – overwhelming sick, poor, elderly people. Patients are pressured to accept auto-billing, then Lincare piles medically dubious gadgets onto their monthly bills, as well as useless, overpriced "patient monitoring" services. Customers with apnea machines are mis-sold ventilators by salesmen who falsely claim these are medically necessary.

Salespeople illegally auto-shipped parts and consumables for Lincare machines to patients, then billed them for it. To satisfy the legal requirement that they telephone patients before placing these orders, sales agents would call patients, put them on hold, then part the call until the patient hung up.

Salespeople are motivated by equal parts greed and terror. Make quota and you can get up to $8,000 per month in bonuses. Miss that punishing quota and you're out on your ass (which is why one salesperson ordered a medically unnecessary ventilator).

Lincare also habitually ignores requests to pick up medically unnecessary equipment, because so long as the equipment is on the patient's premises, they can continue to bill for it. As one Ohio manager wrote to their staff: "As we have already discussed, absolutely no pick-ups/inactivation’s are to be do[ne] until I give you the green light. Even if they are deceased." Execs send out company-wide emails celebrating regional managers who have abandoned pick-ups, like a Feb 2022 "Achievement Rankings" email that touted the fact that most regional centers had at least 150 overdue pickups.

Lincare represents a deep, structural rot in American society. They are too big to punish, and too powerful to regulate. A 2006 law meant to curb oxygen payments was gutted by industry lobbyists. Today, Congress is weighing legislation, the SOAR (Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform) Act, which will allow Lincare to bill the public for hundreds of millions more every year, raising rates and eliminating competitive billing. The bill is supported by patient advocates who are rightly interested in getting oxygen to patients who have been locked out of the system, but the cost of that inclusion is that Lincare will be even more firmly insulated from its corruption.

The Trump Administration will doubtless crack down on some of America's worst companies, and the furious voters who elected the only candidate who campaigned on the idea that America was rotten will cheer him on. But Trump has made it clear that he will select the targets of his administration based on whether they are loyal to him or stand in his way, without regard to whether they harm his supporters:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

Companies like Lincare, repeatedly caught paying illegal kickbacks, know how to play this game.

Image: p.Gordon (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smoke_bomb_with_burning_fuse.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[stillgotscars]

we really need to talk about the “and all the pieces fall right into place” to “‘cause it fit too right, puzzle pieces in the dead of night / should’ve known it was a matter of time” pipeline

[ohgaylor]

the tortured poets department (redesign) — inspired by and in honor of how big how blue how beautiful by florence + the machine (front / back), my favorite album (and visual album) of hers yet

[wingedblooms]

IS THIS ANOTHER HINT FOR ELAIN?!?! ELRIEL? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[Verse 1]

Drownin' in the Blue Nile

He sent me "Downtown Lights"

I hadn't heard it in a while

My boredom's bone-deep

This cage was once just fine

Am I allowed to cry?

I dream of crackin' locks

Throwin' my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks

Crashin' into him tonight, he's a paradox

I'm seeing visions

Am I bad or mad or wise?

[Chorus]

What if he's written "Mine" on my upper thigh only in my mind?

I'm slippin', fallin' back into the hedge maze

Oh, what a way to die

I keep recalling things we never did

Messy top lip kiss, how I long for our trips

Without ever touchin' his skin

How can I be guilty as sin?

[Verse 2]

I keep these longings locked

In lowеrcase inside a vault

Someonе told me, "There's no such thing as bad thoughts

Only your actions talk"

These fatal fantasies

Giving way to labored breath takin' all of me

We've already done it in my head, if it's make-believe

Why does it feel like a vow we'll both uphold somehow?

[Chorus]

What if he's written "Mine" on my upper thigh only in my mind?

I'm slippin', fallin' back into the hedge maze

Oh, what a way to die

My bed sheets are ablaze

I've screamed his name

Buildin' up like waves crashin' over my grave

Without ever touchin' his skin

How can I be guilty as sin?

[Bridge]

What if I roll the stone away?

They're gonna crucify me anyway

What if the way you hold me is actually what's holy?

If long-suffering propriety is what they want from me

They don't know how you've haunted me so stunningly

I choose you and me religiously

[Chorus]

What if he's written "Mine" on my upper thigh only in my mind?

I'm slippin', fallin' back into the hedge maze

Oh, what a way to die

I keep recalling things we never did

Messy top lip kiss, how I long for our trips

Without ever touchin' his skin

How can I be guilty as sin?

[Outro]

He sent me "Downtown Lights"

I hadn't heard it in a while

Am I allowed to cry?

[iammykink]

Committing acts of aromanticism

[letsmcfreackingloseit]

So yes I have OF COURSE read @naffeclipse new fic Apex Polarity and yes, I AM OBSESSED!

So I decided to make a little comic of how I think their "first encounter" might have looked like from Eclipse's perspective.

I can't help but think about how alien and scary we most look to him (especially if there is a history of fasco hunting polar sirens in the past). With all that gear we look like emotionless beings, just observing and uncaring of this ice world. But then when y/n shows up and probably exudes this joy and wonder for his world + shows respect for the creatures and the environment??? Mmh yeah, I can see Eclipse falling for y/n, especially considering how alone he might be...

So yes, that's what I have for today! If you want to read the fic I'll link it right here. I can't recommend it enough, but as always, read the tags so you know what you're getting into! And lastly I also want to @themeeplord beacuse Eclipse's design is basically their design in my style (god I love their design so much, their character/creature designs are the BEST) so all the credit goes to them! Polar!Y/N is my design thou! ;P

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read the two latest chapters-

YIPPEE!!!

[starcurtain]

I would pay such good money for confirmation of whether Ratio and Aventurine have worked together before Penacony. How did it happen??? The talks that went on before Final Victor... The initial spark of inspiration to stick Those Two Guys together...

Like, I just have to know if someone in the IPC deliberately tossed Aventurine and Ratio on to a team together (with or without good intentions). Are any of the higher ups in the IPC or the Intelligentsia Guild out there counting on this partnership working out for the best?

To be a fly on the wall when Ratio found out who he'd been hired to "consult" with...

And Aventurine, getting the IPC mission orders across his desk like "Ah, yes, finally. He's here. My Government Assigned Boyfriend™."

[always-rolling-my-eyes]

You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me