• 0 Posts
  • 77 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 6th, 2023

help-circle




  • Being born there, living your entire life there, your whole family and all your friends are there, you went to high school and college there so it’s easier to transfer to a CSU for grad school, and cheaper because you won’t have to pay non-resident fees, etc etc. The same reason people don’t move from other places. Besides, it takes a lot of savings to move, especially out of state, especially when you have to keep going back and forth to look at places. There’s also just not wanting to move. I am really not ok with being forced out of my home and away from my family because of bullshit like this.

    And yes the weather really is that good - in Southern California.







  • What I don’t understand is how some states charge the same excise tax rate on stop smoking aids that they do on cigarettes and vapes. For example, California’s is like 25% at least, and I think that’s the lowest of the states with the excise tax on “tobacco.” I thought the whole point of taxation was to get people to quit? But it’s only on stuff like Zyn and One pouches, Rogue gum, etc. which are tobacco free, while Nicorette as a brand seems to be exempt from excise tax. Their products are exactly the same, but twice as expensive and work half as well. It’s also counterproductive to have to go to vape shops to buy nicotine gum and pouches because California has made it impossible to get them shipped. Obviously getting people to quit is not the real goal.





  • Clicked on “Department of Education” and this is the first sentence:

    Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.

    The second paragraph praises Milton Friedman, someone who should be up there with Kissinger in terms of what a disgusting piece of shit he and his followers are. If anyone wants to know what’s about to happen to the US, read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine to see how it’s gone when we’ve had our “free market capitalist” hands in other countries’ business. It makes me physically ill. I hope all the gEnOcIdE jOE people understand what this place, and several other countries, will look like with trump in office.






  • Sociologist Matthew Desmond has an amazing book called Evicted that talks about criminal act evictions and profiles people who have been the target of them. The book follows very low income renters in Milwaukee through years of their struggles to find and keep housing. It also follows individual landlords from the same neighborhoods. It’s technically an academic subject and is impeccably researched (the notes section in the back could be its own book) but it reads like a novel. It won a Pulitzer iirc.

    He also just published Poverty, By America last year. I’ve only just started it, but it’s just as readable. He explains overly-complicated regulations and social services red tape in a way that’s concise and easy to understand, and he illustrates their consequences through his interviews with real people. His books should be required reading for every American.